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THE 



NATIONAL SPEAKER: 

CONTAINING "~"~!^ ', '■ 

EXERCISES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED, 

IN PROSE, POETRY, AND DIALOGUE, 
FOR DECLAMATION AND RECITATION; 



AN ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS, 



EXHIBITING A CLEAR EXPLANATION OF PRINCIPLES, WITH RULEG FOR 
EACH ELEMENT OF ORAL EXPRESSION, PRACTICALLY ILLUS- 
TRATED IN A SYSTEMATIC COURSE OF LESSONS. 



X 



BY HENRY B. MAGLATHLIN, A. M, 

AUTHOR OF " THE PRACTICAL ELOCUTIONIST." 



/j-i^ <?-V^-*-^^^ ' Lj^ 



BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY ROBERT S. DAVIS 

NEW YORK : G. F. Coolidge (fc Brothek, and Huntington & Savage. 

PHILADELPHIA : Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co. 

And sold by the trade generally. 

1849. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by btX 

HENRY B. MAGLATHLIN, \9> 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



RECOMMENDATIONS. 

From Thomas Sherrvin, A. M., Principal of the English High School, 

Boston. 
Mr. H. B. Maglathlin : 

Dear Sir : — I have examined your " Practical Elocutionist," and 
"National Speaker," and am happy to say that I think they will prove 
valuable auxiliaries in teaching the important but too much neglected 
art of elocution. 

I commend these works to the favorable regards of teachers and of 
the public. 



From Elbridge Smith, A. M., Principal of the Central High School, 
Cambridge. 

I have examined with great pleasure the proof sheets of '' The Na- 
tional Speaker." I think the selections of a superior order, and I regard 
the entire work as better adapted to the wants of our High Schools than 
any other with which I am acquainted. 



From Caleb Emery, A. M., Principal of the High School, Charlestorvn, 

I have examined ''The National Speaker" with much satisfaction, 
and consider it the best work of the kind with which I am acquainted. 
The arrangement is excellent ; and the selections, for declamation and 
occasional reading, are of a high order, and eminently appropriate. 



From Francis J. Child, A. 31., Instructor in Elocution in Harvard College. 

I have cursorily examined the Introduction to " The National 
Speaker," and am happy to say that I think it simple and lucid, com- 
mendably brief, yet quite sufficient for ordinary teachers and students 
of elocution. 

It seems to me that the book will be found practically very useful. 



THE PRACTICAL- ELOCUTIONIST. 

This work, containing the introductory portion of the National 
Speaker, is published separately, for general use in schools. 



Stereotyped by 

HOB ART & ROBBINS ; 

NEW ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDERY, 

BOSTON. 



PREFACE 



The declamations and recitations in this compilation are 
mostly new. Many of the dialogues, and some of the other 
pieces, have never before been published ; and a majority of 
those not original appear in a work of this kind for the first 
time. A sufficient number, however, of the more choice of 
the older specimens of oratory and fine writing have been in- 
cluded, to make up a desirable variety. 

Reference has been had, in admitting pieces, to the wants 
of pupils of both sexes, and of different ages. 

The devoting of a part of the book to salutatories, valedic- 
tories, presentation speeches, and other occasional addresses, 
constitutes not only an original feature in this work, but one, 
it is believed, that will prove valuable and useful. 

The arrangement of the pieces has been made chiefly with 
a view to convenience in making selections for speaking ; but 
if, for the purposes of reading, this order should seem too 
methodical, it can be deviated from to any extent, in taking 
lessons, so as to secure, practically, all the possible advan- 
tages of an intermingling of prose with poetry, and of mono- 
logue with dialogue. 

Some of the selections, in order to their better adaptation, 
it is but just to their authors to say, have been considerably 
condensed; and, in a/ez^ instances, otherwise changed. The 
piece entitled " Remembrance of the Good" was taken, by per- 
mission, from a compilation by another. Of the two dia- 
logues, " The Seasons," and " The Village Squire," each 
partaking more or less of the nature of a waif, the latter has 
been somewhat altered, and both included in this collection, 
for the reason, that they have never before, in any form, 
appeared in any similar work, to the knowledge of the compiler. 

The elocutionary analysis is the result of much labor, and 
is intended to contain, at least, all the more important princi- 
ples upon which good reading and speaking depend, as clearly 
stated and as fully explained as could be expected in a work 
so elementary in its nature. 

Technical terms have been avoided as much as possible ; 
and when found necessary, no new ones have been introduced, 



IV PREFACE. 

but such as seemed the most just and expressive have been 
selected from Dr. Rush, and other approved authorities. 

Allusion has been made to many errors in the manner of 
reading and speaking, and all of them suitably noticed. 

Particular pains has been taken to furnish concise and defi- 
nite rules for the right use and application of all the elements 
of vocal expression. Under the rules there have been arranged 
numerous illustrations, w^ith a special view to their being used 
as " drill exercises.^'' A large number of the illustrations 
being selected from the body of the work, a key is thereby 
afforded to the right expression of many important passages 
in the declamations and recitations. 

The rhetorical notation is very simple, and, as exhibited on 
the fifty-fifth and the three pages immediately following, will 
be seen to be easy of application. 

In preparing the analysis numerous English and American 
works, relating to the subject treated, have been examined 
and compared. Of these, great indebtedness is acknowledged 
to the well-known very original and philosophical treatise on 
" The Human Voice," by James Rush, M.D. ; Murdoch and 
Russell's "Orthophony, or Vocal Culture in Elocution;" 
Barber's " Grammar of Elocution ;" Gardner's " Music of 
Nature ;" and the productions of Walker, Knowles, Sheridan, 
Bell, Wood, Smart, J. E. Worcester, Webster, Porter, Bron- 
son, Caldwell, Day, Mandeville, W. Russell, VandenhofF, and 
some others, have been consulted with more or less benefit. 
But it has been deemed scarcely necessary to give any more 
particular reference to authorities, since we have seldom had 
occasion to use the language of others, whenever it has been 
found convenient to adopt their views, and assimilate the 
same to the peculiar arrangement and design of this work. 

Convinced, by the testimony of many practical teachers, as 
well as by his own large experience in imparting instruction, 
of the necessity of some brief yet comprehensive and practical 
manual of elocution, adapted alike to common schools and 
academies, the author has caused the elocutionary part of the 
National Speaker to be published by itself, in a cheap volume, 
called " The Practical Elocutionist." 

Henry B. Maglathlin. 

Boston^ May, 1849. 



CONTENTS 



ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Properties of a good voice, 

Freedom to the enunciatory organs, — the body- 
the lungs — position, .... 

VOCAL GYMNASTICS. 

Movements, ..... 

Backward, downward, upward, forward, . 

Breathings, ...... 

Full, gentle, forcible, abrupt, sighing, sobbing 
Gasping, panting, ..... 



ARTICULATION. 

Vocal elements, 

Tonics, 

Table of tonic elements, 
Observations, .... 
Illustrations, .... 
Subtonics and atonies. 
Correspondent sounds. 
Table of subtonics and atonies, . 
Observations, .... 
Illustrations, .... 

1. Subtonics and atonies, 

2. Subtonic combinations, 

3. Atonic combinations, 

4. Subtonic and atonic combinations, 

ACCENTUATION. 

Primary and secondary accent, . 

Rules for accent, — Illustrations, 
Accent on the first syllable, 
Accent on the last syllable but two. 
Accent before the termination. 
Accent according to signification, 

PRONUNCIATION. 

Standard of pronunciation , 

Faults in pronunciation. 

Rules for pronunciation, — Illustrations, 
A unaccented, and A final, 
Ed final, . . . .^ . 

O final, and O unaccented, 
1# 



the teeth 



26 



CONTENTS. 



TJ after the accent, . 
JL, the, and my. 
Very long words, . 
Succession of similar sounds, . 

EMPHASIS 

Ordinary emphasis, . 

Notation of emphasis, 

Kinds of emphasis, ... 

Common errors, ... 

Rules for emphasis, — Illustrations, 

1. New or important idea, 

2. Interjections and exclamations, 

3. Antithesis and contrast, 

4. Cumulative emphasis, 

PAUSES. 

Kinds of pauses, .... 

Principles governing the length of pauses, 

Rules for rhetorical and harmonic pauses, — Illustrations, 

1. Nominative long or emphatic, . 

2. Adjective after its noun, . 

3. Relative pronouns, . 

4. Verb in the infinitive, 

5. Conjunction, preposition, or adverb, 

6. Intervening phrase, . 

7. Transposition of phrases, . 

8. Words in opposition, 

9. An ellipsis, .... 

10. Word or clause, 

11. Poetic lines, .... 

INFLECTION. 

Extent of the inflection. 
Circumflex or wave, — Monotone, 
Errors in inflection, .... 
Rules for inflection, — Illustrations, 

1. Tender and gentle emotion, 

2. Inadequate or trifling matter, 

3. Pause of suspension, 

4. Concession, .... 

5. Last inflection but one, 

6. Wonder, surprise, and indignation, 

7. Direct question and answer, 

8. Direct question attended with emphasis 

9. Indirect question and answer, 

10. Questions stated and repeated, . 

11. Answers expressive of indifference, 

12. Clauses making complete sense, 

13. Command, remonstrance, denunciation, and reproach, 

14. Equal contrast, 

15. Unequal contrast, 



CONTENTS. 



16. Negation and affirmation, .... 

17. Parenthesis, ...... 

18. Supposition, irony, sarcasm, scorn, derision, 

19. Solemnity, sublimity, awe, amazement, horror, 



37 
37 

38 
38 



Varieties, . . . . . 

Common errors, ...... 

Rules for pitch, — Illustrations, .... 

1. Unimpassioned thought and moderate emotion, 

2. Joyous and elevated feelings, 

3. Impulsive and uncontrollable emotions, 

4. Grave and impressive thought, . 

5. Very deep feeling and emotions, 



Degrees of force, 

Error, .... 

Rules for force, — Illustrations, 

1. Suspicion and fear, . 

2. Caution and secrecy, 

3. Pathos and solemnity, 

4. Tranquillity, . 

5. Simple description, . 

6. Didactic style, . 

7. Animated description, 
Energetic address, . 
Anger and rage, 
Impetuous courage, . 
Calling, 
Shouting, 



9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 



STRESS. 



"Varieties, .... 
Rules for stress, — Illustrations, 

1. Fear, 

2. Impetuous courage, . 

3. Obstinate determination, 

4. Impatience, 

5. Pathos and solemnity, 

6. Elevated sentiment, . 

7. Surprise, 

8. Earnest interrogation, 

9. Vehement command, 

10. Indignant emotion, 

11. Voice enfeebled by rapture, 

12. Voice enfeebled by weariness and hun 

QUALITY. 

The pure tone, orotund, aspirated, guttural, 
Plaintiveness of speech, . . . . 

Rules for quality, — Illustrations, 



47 
47 

48 



CONTENTS. 



6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 



1. Cheerfulness and gayety, . 

2. Joy, .... 

3. Love and tenderness, 

4. Pathos, solemnity, and grandeur 

5. Solemnity and sublimity, . 
Joy and sublimity, . 
Earnest and energetic address. 
Vehement command. 
Wonder and amazement, . 
Terror and horror, . 

11. Despair and remorse, 

12. Anger and revenge, 

13. Ardent expression of courage, 

14. Hatred and aversion, 

15. Loathing and contempt, . 

16. Impatience, 

17. Complaint and lamentation, 

18. Supplication and entreaty, 

19. Grief, sorrovi^, and commiseration 



MOVEMENT. 

Common distinctions, .... 

Fault, 

Rules for movement, — Illustrations, . 

1. Didactic thought and simple narration, 

2. Grandeur and vastness, . ' . 

3. Solemnity and pathos, 

4. Profound reverence and adoration, 

5. Deep solemnity, awe, and consternation, 

6. Cheerfulness, . 

7. Lively description, 

8. Joy and mirth, 

9. Gayety and humor, 

10. Sudden fear, . 

11. Violent anger, 

12. Hurry and haste, 

GENERAL REMARKS. 

System of notation, .... 
Tabular view, — Illustrations, 

1. Caution, solemnity, tranquillity, 

2. Earnest interrogation, 

3. Amazement and horror, 

4. Melancholy, cheerfulness, mirth, 

5. Hurry and haste, 

6. Pathos, terror, aversion, . 

7. Lamentation, .... 

8. Shout of command, pathos, 

9. Rapturous emotion, . 

10. Didactic thought, 

11. Grave and serious description, . . 

12. Bold declamation. 



CONTENTS. 



PROSE DECLAMATIONS AND RECITATIONS. 



The Scholar's Responsibihty, 

Duties as Americans, 

Patriotic Self-sacrifice, 

On the Oregon Question, 

Enmity towards Great Britain, 

Death of John Q. Adams, 

Remembrance of the Good, 

National Monument to Washington, 

On Declaring the Republic, 

Sufferings and Destiny of the Pilgrims 

Glorious New England, 

Pepetuity of our Liberties, . 

Ancient and Modern Productions, 

The Ancient and Modern World, 

Upon the Employment of Indians, 

On Reform in Parliament, . 

Infidelity Tested, 

Belshazzar's Feast, 

In Behalf of Education, 

Ignorance in our Country a Crime, 

The Provisional Government to the Peopl 

The Dishonest Politician, 

In Reply to Mr, Wickham, 

The Character of Avonmore, 

A Columbian Orator, 

Lyceum Speech of Mr. Orator Climax, 

Unlawful Military Combinations, . 

To the Jury, in Case of O'Brien, . 

Speech of Vindication, 

Necessity of Resistance, 

On Conciliation with the Colonies, 

Against the Force Bill, 

Extract from Speech delivered in New 

Crime its own Detecter, 

In Behalf of Greece, 

The Exact Sciences, . 

Knowledge is Power, 

In Reply to Corry, . . . ■ 

Address to Citizens and Soldiers, 





C. B. Haddock, 


59 




D. Webster, 


60 




. H. Clay, 


62 




E. Hannegan, 


63 




. R. Choate, 


65 




I. E. Holmes, 


67 




H. Humphrey, 


68 




R. C. Winthrop, 


69 




A. De Lamartine, 


70 


; 


. E. Everett, 


72 




S. S. Prentiss, 


73 




. L. Beecher, 


74 




. C. Sumner, 


76 




J. Martineau, 


77 




. W.Pitt, 


78 




H. Brougham, 


79 




. R. Hall, 


81 




A. B. Fuller, 


82 




S. S. Randall, 


83 




. H. Mann, 


85 


pie, 


A. De Lamartine, 


86 




H. W. Beecher, 


87 




. W. Wirt, 


89 




J. P. Curran, 


90 




J. G. Adams, 


91 




Anonymous, 


92 




. J. McLean, 


93 




. Whiteside, 


95 




. R. Emmet, 


96 




. P. Henry, 


98 




. ■ . E. Burke, 


101 




. J. C. Calhoun, 


102 


York, 


C. M. Clay, 


104 




D; Webster, 


105 




. H. Clay, 


107 




. E. Everett, 


109 




. E. H. Chapin, 


110 




. H. Grattan, 


111 




A. Jackson, 


112 



10 CONTENTS. 








Speech of an Indian Prisoner, . . . Black Hawk 


113 


Alpin's Lament, 




J. Macpherson 


114 


In Behalf of Starving Ireland, 




S. S. Prentiss 


115 


The Fall of Switzerland, . 




. S. Smith 


116 


The Judiciary Department, . 




W. E. Channing 


118 


In Defence of Freeman, 




. W. H. Seward 


119 


In Defence of Widow Wilkins, 




. C. Phillips 


120 


The Model Repeal Orator, 




H, Mayhew 


122 


Caesar Passing the Rubicon, 




. J. S. Knowles 


123 


For the Vote of Confidence, 




Compte De Mirabeau 


124 


A Vindication of the Laborer, 




. C. Naylor 


125 


British Predilection, . 




J. Randolph 


127 


More may be Meant than Said, 




. R. Choate 


128 


The Federal Union, . 




D. Webster 


130 


The Stability of our Government, 




C. Sprague 


131 


Virginia and Massachusetts, 




J. McDowell 


132 


Reply to Mr. McDowell, 




. J. G. Palfrey 


135 


Value of Public Faith, 




. F. Ames 


137 


The Future Age of Literature, 




H. Bushnell 


138 


The Age of Humanity, 




. C. Sumner 


139 


POETICAL DECLAMATIONS AND RECITATIONS. 


My Father 's at the Helm, .... Anonymous 


141 


Press On, .... 






P. Benjamin 


142 


The Young Soldier, . 






J. G. Adams 


142 


The Power of Art, . 






C, Sprague 


143 


Washington's Remains, 






G. Lunt 


144 


David's Lament for Absalom, 






N. P. Willis 


145 


Address to the Ocean, 






B. W. Proctor 


146 


A Farewell to America, 






R. H. Wilde 


148 


The Features, . 






N. M. Magazine 


148 


Away to the West, 






W. K. Cole 


149 


Bruce's Address, 






. R. Burns 


150 


La Marseillaise, 






C. W. Baird 


151 


Evening Prayer at a Girl's Schoo' 


, 




. B. Barton 


153 


The Evening before Eternity, 






J. A. Hillhouse 


154 


The Flight of Xerxes, 






M. J. Jewsbury 


155 


My Choice, .... 






Anonymous 


156 


The Kaiser, .... 






W. Howitt 


157 


The Summons of the Destroyer, 






H. H. Milman 


158 


Satan Calling to the Fallen Ange] 


s, 




. J. Milton 


159 


Water, Bright Water for me. 






E. Johnson 


160 


A Modest Wit, . 






Anonymous 


161 


The Pilgrim Mothers, 






S. F. Streeter 


162 


The Pauper's Death-Bed, . 






C. B. Southey 


163 


Albuquerque, 






. R. Dawes 


164 


The Seminole's Reply, 






G, W. Patten 


166 


History of John Day, 






. T. Hood 


167 


The Polish Exiles, . 






Miss Pardee 


169 


Casabianca, 






F. Hemans 


170 





CONTENTS. 


11 


Patience and Hope, . . . . . E. L. Bulwer, 171 


Excelsior, . 






H. W. Longfellow, 171 


The Farmer's Blunder, 






Anonymous, 173 


Look Aloft, 






J. Lawrence, 175 


Song of Labor, . 






. I. F. Shepard, 175 


The Ship-builders, 






. J. G. Whittier, 177 


Rienzi's Address, 






. M. R. Mitford, 178 


Marco Bozzaris, . 






. F. G. Halleck, 179 


Spare the Birds, 






. G. W. Bethune, 181 


The Cold Water Man, 






. J. G. Saxe, 182 


The Mother Praying, . 






. A. Cunningham, 183 


Thanatopsis, 






. W. C. Bryant, 184 


Child Rescued from the Eag 


le. 




. S. S. Advocate, 186 


My Unmarried Aunt, . 






. 0. W. Holmes, 188 


The Sea, . 






. J. C. M'Cabe, 189 


The People's Hymn, . 






C. D. Stuart, 190 


Bernardine Du Born, . 






L. H. Sigourney, 191 


Battle of Brunnenberg, 






J. H. Frere, 192 


Darkness, . 






G. G. Byron, 194 


The Baron's Last Banquet, 






. A. G. Greene, 196 


New Hampshire, 






. J. Q. A. Wood, 198 


Progress of Liberty, . 






. G. D. Prentice, 199 


A Parody, 






S. S. Greene, 199 


The Prairie Cottage, . 






J. H. Scott, 201 


The Skater's Song, 






E. Peabody, 201 


The Mother and her Child, 






-Ch. Ad. and Journal, 202 


The Present Age, 






M. A. Livermore, 203 


Forest Hymn, 






. W. C. Bryant, 205 


The Closing Year, 






. G. D. Prentice, 207 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR AND DRAMATIC. 



The Beauty of Piety, . 

The Seasons, 

Ungrounded Suspicions, 

On Chatting, 

The Hard Name, 

Fortune-Telling, 

Queen Catharine, 

WilHam Tell, . 

Cowardice and Boasting, 

The Indian's Wrongs, 

The Sisters, 

Ellen and Mary, . 

The Colonists, 

Upon School Studies, . 

The Hatter and Printer, 

The Frenchman's Lesson, 

Banishment of Cataline, 

A Scene from Venice Preserved, 

The Sister Band, 



S. C. Edgarton, 209 

Anonymous, 215 

Ch. Gosp. Guide, 217 

E. A. Bacon, 220 

Comm. Script., 223 

J. A. Fletcher, 226 

Comm. Script., 229 

J. S. Knowles, 235 

W. Shakspeare, 241 

N. T. Monroe, 244 

F. Heraans, 248 

Gosp. Teacher, 250 

. L. Aikin, 251 

W. Fernald, 253 

J. M. Morton, 257 

Home Journal, 262 

. G. Croly, 263 

. T. Otway, 266 

N. T. Monroe, 269 



12 



CONTENTS. 



The Four Wishes, 

On Curiosity, 

The Ladies' Wreath, a Topic, arranged by 

Tattleville Sewing Society, 

Church Critics, . 

The Village Squire, . 

Gustavus Vasa, 

Baron Von Klingenberg, 

Julius Caesar, 



Anonymous, 273 

Comm. Script., 274 

H. A. H. Wait, 276 

. F. Crosby, 280 

Eastern Mail, 283 

Anonymous, 285 

. H. Brooks, 293 

J. C. Porter, 295 

W. Shakspeare, 307 



OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES AND EXERCISES. 



A Salutatory, 
A Salutatory, 
An Introductory, 
A Valedictory, . 
A Closing Address 
A Closing Address 
An Epilogue, 
A Closing Address 
On Presentation of 
On Presentation of 
On Presentation of 
On Presentation of 
On Presentation of 
Address to General 



. W 

at an Academy, 

for Examination Day, 

at a Repeated Exhibition, 
a Silver Pitcher at . 
a Vase and Flowers at 
a Gold Pencil at 
Books at 



Comm. Script., 311 

. F.Crosby, 312 

Comm. Script., 313 

L. P. Boardman, 314 

. J. Fisher, 315 

J. C. Porter, 316 

C. D. Stuart, 317 

J. G. Adams, 318 

Salem, 319 

West Newton, 321 

Dan vers, 321 

Waterville, 322 



a Gold Ring and Watch-chain at Salem, 323 
Taylor at . . . New Orleans, 324 



AN 



ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS 



INTRODUCTION 



All that language or tones can effect, to convince the understand- 
ing, arouse the feelings, or enlist sympathy, must be done by the 
voice addressed to the ear. Hence, upon its quality and management 
depends the perfection of reading and speaking. A full, clear, and 
energetic utterance, united with richness and mellowness of tone, 
constitutes the properties of a good voice. In order to acquire these 
properties, by practising exercises designed for vocal culture, freedom 
of movement must be allowed to all the enunciatory organs. 

1. The posture of the hody must be upright and easy, the 
head erect, and the shoulders held back and down, so as to 
expand the chest as much as possible. 

2. The teeth must not be too nearly closed, or the cavity 
of the mouth so contracted but that the tongue may execute 
its proper movements with celerity and exactness. 

3. The lungs must be kept inflated ; the portion of air 
given out being constantly and imperceptibly supplied, so that 
there shall always be a quantity in reserve. 

4. In order to preserve an erect and easy position, when 
standing, the feet should be placed a few inches apart, one 
being a little in advance of the other, with its heel slightly 
turned inward; and the foot kept back should receive the 
principal weight of the body. 



VOCAL GYMNASTICS. 

Gymnastics in the open air are among the most important aids to 
vocal culture. ' The following movements and breathings, suitable for 

Upon what depends the perfection of reading or speaking ? What consti- 
tutes the properties of a good voice ? What should be the posture of the 
body 7 How must be the teeth and mouth ? The lungs ? How must the 
feet be placed 7 What is said of Gymnastics 7 What of the movements 7 
2 



14 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

the school-room, by expanding the chest, quickening' the circulation, 
and imparting energy and pliancy to the respiratory organs, have 
considerable use as a preparatory drill in developing the voice. 

MOVEMENTS. 

1. BackvMrd, with arms akimbo. With the head erect, and 
th.e shoulders back and down, place the hands upon the hips 
in such a manner that the thumbs shall press upon the side of 
the back, and the fingers upon the body in front, and then 
throw the elbows forcibly backward. 

2. Downward, with arms and hands extended. Move the 
hands, after extending them downward by the sides, briskly 
up and down. 

3. Upward, with the arms and hands extended. Let the 
hands and arms be placed in a vertical position, and then 
drawn down and projected upward, with force. 

4. Forward, with the arms and hands extended. Draw back 
the hands and arms, after being extended horizontally forward, 
and project them forth again quickly, with force. 

5. Backward, with arms and hands extended. Place the 
arms horizontally forward, with the palms of the hands 
together, and then throw them apart forcibly, bringing the 
backs of the hands as near together as possible behind the 
back. 

BREATHINGS. 

1. Full breathing. Place the arms and hands as required 
in the first movement ; then, after slowly drawing in the breath 
until the chest is fully expanded, emit it with the utmost 
slowness. 

2. Gentle breathing. Draw in the breath as in a full breath- 
ing, and expire it audibly in a prolonged sound of the letter h. 

3. Forcible breathing. Fill the lungs, and then let out the 
breath with some degree of force, in the manner of a whis- 
pered cough. 

4. Abrupt breathing. Send forth a full breath suddenly 
and forcibly, in the shortened sound of h, in the manner of 
an abrupt whispered cough. 

5. Sighing. Fill suddenly the lungs with a full breath, 
and emit it as quickly as possible. 

6. Sobbing. With a slight convulsive effort, inflate the 
lungs, and then send forth somewhat more gently the breath. 

Describe and illustrate the first movement. The second. The third. The 
fourth. The fifth. Illustrate each of them, five times, rapidly. Describe 
and illustrate full breathing. Gentle breathing. Forcible breathing. Ab- 
rupt breathing. Sighing. Sobbing. 



ARTICULATION. 



15 



7. Gasping. Like sobbing, only the lungs must be filled 
with more violence and haste. 

8. Panting. Breathe quickly and violently, making the 
emission of the breath loud and forcible. 



ARTICULATION. 

Elocution, or the art of speaking and reading with ease, elegance, 
and effect, makes a just Articulation, which is a clear and distinct 
utterance of all the elementary sounds entering into the formation 
of words, of the greatest consequence. It is certain that a speaker 
who possesses only a moderate voice, if his articulation be good, will 
be better understood, and heard with more pleasure, than another, 
speaking ever so loudly, whose articulation is imperfect. 

The elements of our language have been divided, according 
to the quality of their sounds, into tonics, subtonics, and atonies, 

TONICS. 

The tonics are so called because they have perfect tone or 
vocality. 

They are the only elements admitting of an indefinite pro- 
longation of sound. They are nineteen in number. 



TABLE OF TONIC ELEMENTS. 



1. ^ in ^11 — ^we — War. 

2. A " Arm — Man— Half. 

3. A " ^t — Man — H^zve. 

4. A " Air — Care — Fare. 
b. A " ^sk — Past — Dance. 
6. E " £nd — Let — Mesh. 
l.E ^^ Err — Fern— Earl 

8. E " Eve — Eel — Seize. 

9. I " It- Sznce- Dzd. 
10. O " Odd — Rob — Blot. 



OinDo- 

U " Full 
U " Up- 



- Move — Soon. 

- Pz^ll — Bz^sh. 

- Spwn — Dull. 



. A in Ale - 
I " Ice - 
O "Old- 
Ou " Our- 
Oi " Oil- 
U " Use- 



- Mate — Lazd. 
-Lime — Fznd. 
-Ode — Note. 
-Ownce — Loz^d. 
• Joint — Voice. 
-Union — Mz^te. 



OBSERVATIONS. 



1. The sounds of the first thirteen elements in the table 
are simple, that is, they may be indefinitely prolonged with- 



Describe and illustrate gasping. Panting. What is Elocution? What 
is Articulation ? How have the elements of the language been divided ? 
Why are the tonics so called? What is said of them? Their number? 
What are the sounds of il ? OfE? Of I? Of O? Of U? Of OU? 
Of OI? Which of the elements are simple? Name them. 



16 ' ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

out change of tone ; the other six cannot thus be prolonged 
without change, and are compound ; thus, 

A in ale begins with the initial sound of «, and ends with a slight 
sound of e in eve. I in ice begins with a in at, and ends with i in it. 
O in old is compounded of an opening sound vanishing into o in do. 
Ou in our is formed by commencing with u in up, and closing with a 
short quantity of o in do. Oi in oil is compounded of o in old and i 
in it. U in use is the sound of e in eve, blended with o in. do. 

2. There are a few medium or modified sounds which 
require careful attention, in order that their utterance may- 
be strictly conformed to the standard of elegant usage ; as, 

A in air, when articul.ated by the best speakers, is an intermediate 
sound between a in ale and e in end. A in ask, properly articulated, 
is an intermediate element between a in arm and a in at. E in err 
sounds between e in end and u in cur. The sound of ur, also, as 
heard from good speakers, in some words is so much softened as to 
approach very nearly to e in err.* O in on is somewhat lengthened 
before/, s, th, and ng ; as in often, moss, cloth, and long. 

3. In forming the tonics the voice is simply put forth from 
the mouth opened at certain distances ; thus, 

A in all is formed by opening wide the mouth, with resonance of 
sound in the chest. O in on is the same as a in all, only its quantity 
of sound is shorter. E in err is also the^same, except the mouth is 
a little closer. In forming a in arm, the mouth is about as far open 
as in e in err, but with the corners of the mouth a little drawn back, 
and with a resonance of sound in the head. Of a similar formation, 
but differing in degrees of quantity, are a in ask, a in air, e in end, 
and u in up. A in ale, like these, has a resonance in the head, but 
requires in its formation that the corners of the mouth be somewhat 
more drawn back, and the teeth somewhat more nearly closed. 
In forming e in eve, the mouth is drawn still further back, and the 
teeth very nearly together. I in it, the same as the last, except a 
shorter sound. 7 in ice combines in its formation that of a in at and 
i in it. O in old requires the lips to be in a circle, and has a reso- 
nance in the head. O in do, like the last, except that the lips must 
project in the manner of pouting. U in full is a shorter sound, 
formed like o in do. U in use combines the formations of e in eve 
and in old. Ou in our unites the methods of forming u in up and 
in do ; and oi in oil, the methods of forming o in old and i in it. 

Which of the elements are compound ? Of what sounds is a in all com- 
posed ? I'm ice 7 O in old ? Ou in our ? OI in oil 7 U m use ? What 
IS said of the medium sounds ? What of a in air ? A in ask 7 E in err ? 
O in on, before /, s, th, and ng- 7 How are the tonics formed ? What of a 
in all ? Of in on 7 E in ^err ? ^ in arm 7 E in err 7 A in ask 7 A 
in air, e in end, and u in up 7 A in ale 7 JS in eve 7 Iinit7 J in ice 7 O 
in old? O in do 7 U in full? Win use 7 E in eve? Ou in our 7 Oi in 
oil? 



* See Smart's Practice of Elocution. 



W ARTICULATION. 17 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. A. 

AW, also, daub, draw, straw, nor, for, broad, ought, foz^ght. 

2. A. 

Arm, ah, harm, {arm, part, balm, calm, heart, g?^ard, yard. 

3. A. 

At, add, ban, hand, has, bat, slant, jam, shall, plazd, wax. 

4. A. 

Air, fare, dare, rare, ware, tare, hear, pra?/er, there, where. 

5. A. 

Ask, graff, graft, glance, chance, clasp, brass, branch, grant. 

6. E. 

End, den, hence, shell, beg, theft, rest, any, many, bz^ry. 

7. E. 

Err, earth, perfect, gzrd, firm, m^/rrh, m^/rtle, curl, burden. 

S. E. 
Eve, me, feel, field, team, heat, cheek, wheel, pique, frieze. 

9. J. 
It, hid, grim, zinc, sing, been, women, husj, silvan, hymn. 

10. O. 

Odd, fond, not, on, rob, wad, was, often, loss, froth, prong. 

11. O. 

Do, to, prove, noon, sowp, tour, troop, rude, rule, true, drew. 

12. U. 

Fuh, bz^^ll, pMsh, p?^t, would, could, shoz^ld, wolf, foot, good. 

13. U 

Ujp, bz^d, dull, hum, run, hut, love, glove, blood, toz^ch, does. 

14. A. 

■ Ale, age, make, fame, aim, hail, may, stray, obey, weigh. 

15. J. 

Ice, life, pile, sign, wipe, die, eye, guide, buy, style, t?/pe. 

16. O. 

Old, tome, ode, note, oak, hoe, door, soul, snoio, heau, show. 

17. OU. 

Our, thou, loud, pownd, rout, row, now, cow, fowl, growl. 

18. 01. 

Oil, soil, point, void, noise, voice, J03/, coy, hoy, destroy/. 

19. U. 
Use, fume, lure, dwpe, due, sue, feud, few, hew, new, blew. 

Give, first, the element, then the words of each illustration. Point out the 
instances of the same element being represented by different letters. 



18 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 



SUBTONICS AND ATONICS. 



The Subtonics are so called from their vocal properties being 
somewhat inferior to that of the tonics ; and the Atonies so 
called from their want of tone or vocality. 

Each atonic element has its corresponding subtonic, of 
which it is the vanish or stop sound ; as b, sounded until its 
vocality is lost, gives as its vanishing whisper the peculiar 
sound of p. 

The subtonics are fifteen, and the atonies ten, in number. 
They are so arranged as to exhibit their correspondence of 
sound in the following 

TABLE. 
Subtonics with correspondent Atonies. 



n Up — Par — Pope — Pit. 
• lif— Tall— Tune— Tin. 
' Z'ill— Cor^— Cat— Cut. 
' I/— Farm— Fi/e— Fit. 
' Sin — -Salt — Seen— Set. 
' Shun — Bus A — SAame. 
' TAin— TAong— Brea^A. 
' He—Hit—mrd—Hot. 
^ WAen— WAat— WAeel. 
' CA u rcA — CAalk— CAain . 



1. i? in Ebb—Ba^rb—B^de—Bnt. A. P 
2.D " Did— Down- Duke— X)o. 2. T 

3. G " E^^— Get— Came— Go. 3. K 

4. F " Euer- Saye— Febet. 4. F 

5. Z " Buzz— Zeddoxis— Zone. 5. S 
6.Zh^^ A^ure — Seizure — Vbier. G.-SA 

7. TA" TAis-Fa^Aer-TAy-TAe. 7. TA 

8. y " Yet— Fam- Yield- Yes. 8. H 

9. TF" TFoe-TFarm-Wit-We. 9. TFA' 
10./ " /udge— /ar— Jew— /et. 10. CA 

Subtonics having no correspondent Atonies. 

11. P in Pap— Paw— Bride. 
— P " Bar — Lard — Larch. 

12. L " Loll— Lull— Lsixne. 

13. iVf " Mum—M-din — iVforn. 

14. iV " Nun — iVorth — iVine. 

15. Ng " Sing — Pro^io- — Sung. 

OBSERVATIONS. 

1. The element r is repeated in the table in order to show its soft- 
ened sound when used Jinal, or before a subtonic or atonic. 

2. C, q and x, represent no sound not denoted by other letters. 

3. W and y are used, according to their position in words, as 
tonic or subtonic elements. 

4. The subtonics and atonies are called consonants by gramma- 
rians, and arcdistinguished from the elements called vowels, as sounds 
modified in their formation by the organs of speech coming more or 
less in contact. 

Why are the Subtonics so called ? Why are Atonies so called ? How do 
ihe atonies correspond with the subtonics ? How many subtonics are there ? 
How many atonies? What is the vanish or stop sound of 6 ? Of d? Of 
^? Of V? &c. To what subtonic does p correspond? To what t? &c. 
Which subtonics have no correspondent atonies ? When is the sound of r 
softened? Which letters represent no peculiar sound of their own? How 
are w and y used ? How do consonants and vowels differ ? 



ARTICULATION. 19 

1. B,p, m, w, wh, V, and /, owing- their formation principally to 
the lips, have been called labials. D, t, th in this, th in thin, z and 
5, elements formed by the aid of the teeth, are denominated dentals. 
From the agency of the tongue in their articulation, j", ch, zh, sh, I, 
and r, take the name of Unguals; and g, k, y and A,* on account of 
being articulated chiefly by aid of the palate, or the back part of the 
mouth, are by some called palatals. N and ng, being modified in 
their utterance by the nostrils, have received the name of nasals. 

2. By trying to pronounce forcibly the word ebb, with the lips 
closely shut, a murmuring sound will be heard from the chest, which 
is the element b. To form the sound of p, close the lips as in b, and 
then force them suddenly apart, with an explosive whisper. M is 
also made with the lips closed, and is heard, while the breath is 
passing through the nostrils, as a murmuring resonance in the head. 
W is a vocal sound produced with the lips curved and mouth con- 
tracted, as in the act of whistling. A whispering or aspirated sound, 
commencing far down in the throat, with the lips and mouth as in 
w, will produce the sound of wh. The sound of v is obtained by 
pressing the upper fore-teeth upon the lower lip, with a murmuring 
resonance in the head and chest. F is an aspirated utterance, with 
the mouth as in tJ. 

3. In forming the element d, the mouth is a little way open, while 
a murmuring vocal sound is modified by forcibly pressing the tip of 
the tongue against the gums, just above the upper teeth. T is a 
whisper produced with the tongue placed as in d. Th in this is 
formed by emitting a vocal sound, with the tongue pressed against 
the upper fore-teeth. Th in thin is an aspirated lisping sound, pro- 
duced by forcing the breath between the teeth, with the tongue placed 
as in the other th. Z is a vocalized hissing sound, uttered between 
the open teeth, with the end of the tongue placed against the gum, 
just above the upper fore-teeth. The aspirated hissing sound of s is 
produced by forcing out the breath with the mouth placed as in z. 

4. In uttering j, the tongue is somewhat drawn in and thrown up 
against the roof of the mouth, and a murmuring and rustling sound, 
produced by an escape of breath, is heard from the chest. To pro- 
duce ch, close the teeth, and press the forepart and the edges of the 
tongue firmly against the roof of the mouth, and then, at the instant 
of separatiag the teeth and dropping the point of the tongue, make a 
hissing emission of breath. In the formation of zh, the forepart of 
the tongue is drawn up nearly to the roof of the mouth, allowing an 
emission of partially vocalized breath between the tongue and teeth. 
Sh is a whispered utterance with the mouth, as in zh. L is made 
by raising the tip of the tongue to the roof of the mouth, and allow- 
ing the breath to pass out by the sides of the tongue, in a vocalized 
sound. R is formed by allowing the breath, with a slightly vibrating 

Which are the labials? Which the dentals 7 Which the linguals ? 
Which the palatals ? Which are the nasals 7 How is h formed 7 How p ? 
How m ? How w 7 How wh ? How v 7 How /? How d 7 How 1 7 
How th in this 7 How tk in thin 7 How z 7 How s 7 How j 7 How ch 7 
Howz/i? Hows/i? HowZ? Howr? 



* ITis hy some elocutionists classed by itself, and called an aspirate. 



20 



ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 



sound, to pass over the tongue, with its tip nearly to the gum, just 
above the upper fore-teeth. 

5. G as in egg is produced by opening the mouth, and pressing 
the roof of the tongue against the palate. K is formed the same as 
g, except that the action against the palate is more forcible, and by 
means simply of a breathing. Y is formed by an expulsion of sound 
with moderate force, with the mouth and tongue as in g. H is 
a whispering sound, produced by a hard breathing, with the mouth 
and throat partially open. 

6. N is formed with the mouth and tongue as in d, and allowing 
the vocalized breath to escape through the nose. Ng is executed as 
g, except with the sound through the nose as in n. 



ILLrSTRATIONS. 

I. Subtonics and Atonies. 

1. B. 

E33, bib, ba.be, Jail, ^eat, boon, curb, dvab, globe, but, by. 

2. D. 

Did, deed, dared, dawn, dun, led, rod, add, odd, dye, do. 

3. G. 

Egg, gag, gig, drag, drug, gem, gone, gild, hog, gum. 

4. F. 

Ever, ■yabe, hive, gra^ye, z?ice, veer, •yain, mo?;e, if, tJoice. 

5. Z. 

Buzz, ooze, zone, haze, zinc ; rose, was, suffice, Xenophon. 

6. ZL 

Azure, grazier, glazier, hosier, measure, pleasure, treasure. 

7. Th. 

This, they, thou, smooth, hathe, swathe, there, thither. 

8. Y. 

Ye, yell, yarn, yoke, yawn, your, yield, year, young, yea. 

9. W. 

Woe, wed, weak, win, wit, w^orld, wail, west, waste, wood. 

10. /. 

Jud^e, just, yoint, jeer, ^aw ; ^em, wa^e, ca^e, ^in^er. 

11. R. 

Ra]), rain, round, read, learn, stir, morn, door, roar. 

12. L. 

Loll, lad, lie, low, law, all, well, dull, mill, full, fall. 

How is g- in cg-if formed ? How k ? How y ? How h ? How n ? 
How ng-? How many labials are there? How many dentals? How 
many lin^uals ? How many palatals ? How many nasals ? Articulate the 
element at the head of each illustration, and then pronounce its words. 



ARTICULATION. 21 

13. M. 

Mum, maim, him, moss, helm, dnmh, lim, gu.m, same, am. 

14. N. 

Nun, name, cane, nail, new, noun, man, pe?z, lun, ram. 

15. Ng. 

Sing, song, rung, young, wing, hank, dvank, ink, wink. 

1. P. 

Up, pipe, pap, hope, pass, pull, prop, peal, top, sup. 

2. T. 

It, tint, tide, tone, tug, het, deht, rushes?, helpe<i, stopper?. 

3. K 

Kill, kee^, Zrite, ^in, call, cull, cor^, blac^, quack, quote. 

4. F. 

If, fine, fall, fee, off, raft, laugh, mugh, phrase, ^>^antom. 

5. S. 

Sin, saYe, 5ound, sum, ^ress, miss, glass, cease, slice, city. 

6. Sh. 

Shun, shame, show, sheen, clash, chaise, ocean, pamon. 

7. Th. 

Thin, theme, thorn, thanl^, thirst, hath, lath, north, moth. 

8. H. 

He, hole, had, haul, horse, hot, Ml, >^elp, heel, hut, hood. 

9. Wh. 

When, where, who, what, whet, whisk, whirl, whale, why. 

10. Ch. 

Church, cAarm, check, child, marCi^, rich, much, such, cAop. 

II. Subtonic Combinations. 

1. Bl, dl, gl, tI, vl, zl, lb, Id, Im, In. — Kble, handle, glow, 
hurl, driz;'Z, muzz^l, hulb, fold, him, ialVn. 

2. Br, dr, gr, rb, rd, rg, rm, rn. — ^rand, draw, gra^e, 
harb, lard, bar^e, arm, ham. 

3. Bz, dz, gz, thz, Iz, mz, nz, rz, vz. — Ro^e^, deeds, hegs, 
hreathes, {alls, tombs, ians, wars, lives. 

4. Gd, jd, Id, md, nd, ngd, bid, did, gld, rid, zld. — Beg^'^, 
wed^'^, iold, doom'd, land, hang'd, hohbVd, addVd, haggVd, 
snarVd, muzzVd. 

5. Lbd, rbd, Imd, rmd, dnd, rnd, snd, rvd. — ^ulb^d, harVd, 
hlm'd, arm'd, madd'n^d, hurn^d, reas^n'd, carved. 

Articulate each of the subtonics in order. Articulate in like manner each 
of the atonies. Articulate each element of the combinations by itself, — then 
the combinationsj — after which pronounce the words of the illustration. 



22 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

6. Rbz, rdz, rmz, rnz, rvz, dnz, zmz, znz. — Orhs^ bar3^, 
2irms, h^rns, carves, madd'ns, sYtasms, pris^Tis. 

7. Lbz, Ivz, Imz, Idz, biz, dlz, glz, rlz, viz, zlz. — BuZ35, 
^Ives, ^Ittis, folds, cables, addles, maiigles, hurls, diiv^lSj 
rauzzles. 

III. Atonic Combinatiojis. 

1. Fs, ks, ps, ts, sk, sp, St. — Cliffs, rocks, caps, hats, mask^ 
spend, stone. 

2. Flh, pth, fths, pths,fts, pts, sps, sts. — Yifth, depth, ^fths, 
depths, wafts, cijpts, clasps, rests. 

3. Ft, kt, pt, sht, cht, skt, spt, fst, pst. — Oft, sack'd, crept, 
^ash'd, fetched, mask'd, clasp'd, laugh'st, lap'st. 

IV Subtonic and Atonic Combinations. 

1. Fl, kl, pi, si, tl, Ish, Ith, Ik, Ip, Is, It. — Flmg, cling, 
plnme, slay, title, ^Ich, health, milk, help, false, halt. 

2. Fr, kr, pr, tr, rf, rch, rk, rp, rs, rt. — From, crown, 
prance, trade, turf, search, hark, harp, hearse, cart. 

3. Mf mp, mt, ngk, nch, nt, kn, sn, vn. — ^jmph, hemp, 
tempt, ink, linch, meant, tak'n, snow, ev'n. 

4. Knd, pud, pld, sld, tld, Ift, Ikt, Ipt. — '^eck'n^d, op'n'd, 
ri'^pVd, nestrd, titVd, delft, milk'd, help'd. 

5. Rth, rsh, rft, rkt, rnt, rpt, sht, skt. — 'North, marsh, 
wharf ^d, worked, hurnt, harped, sn'iash''d, masked. 

6. Lfs, mfs, Iks, Its, nts, ngths, Iths. — Gulfs, njmp/is, 
milks, halts, wants, lengths, healths. 

7. Dst, gst, fst, 1st, mst, nst, pst, rst. — Didst, hegg^st, 
lawgh'st, iaWst, comb'st, winc'd, rapp'st, hurst. 

8. Blst, dlst,flst, gist, klst, plst, rlst, tlst, zlst. — Troubl'st, 
handrst, trifVst, mangVst, wrinkVst, help'st, hurVst, settl'st, 
m\izzVst. 

9. Bdst, gdst, Idst, ndst, rdst, vdst, rlst, ntst. — VroVd^st, 
hegg'd'st, hurVd'st, send'st, liv'd'st, hurVst, wanfst. 

10. Rbst, rmst, dnst, knst, mst, rvst, znst. — ^arVst, 
warmest, hard'n'st, hlack'n'st, hurn'st, curv^st, im^ris'n'st. 

11. Bldst, didst, gldst, kldst, rldst, tldst, vldst. — TroubVdst, 
iondVdst, m.angVdst, wrinkVdst, hurVdst, settVdst, drivVdst. 

12. Lmdst, rmdst, rndst, dndst, kndst, zndst. — Whelm' dst, 
ar7n'dst, hurn'dst, hard'n'dst, hlack'n'dst, im^ris'7i'dst. 

In the subtonic and atonic combinations, point out which elements are sub- 
tonics and which atonies. Explain how these differ. 



ACCENTUATION. 23 



ACCENTUATION. 

Accent is stress of voice on a particular syllable, to dis- 
tinguish it from others in the same word. 

It contributes to the harmony and distinctness of utterance, and is 
often necessary in discriminating- the different significations of the 
same word. 

When two syllables in the same word are accented, that receiving 
the greater stress is called the primary accent, and the other the 
secondary. 

The secondary, whether occurring before or after the other, is 
almost always one syllable from it. Words of many syllables have 
sometimes more than one secondary accent. 

The following rules for accentuation, being comparatively free from 
exceptions, will be found of great service to the learner, if they are 
thoroughly committed to memory. 

RULES FOR ACCENT. 

1. Words of two syllables formed by annexing to words 
of one syllable, aZ, age., ant., ance, ed, en, e?*, ent., ment, ing., 
ive, ish, ist, less, ness, ship, some, or ful, have the accent on 
the first. 

2. Words of three syllables ending in ly or ness, preceded 
by ed, less, ing, ish, ive, mis, some, or ful, have the accent on 
the first syllable. 

3. All words of two syllables ending in le, with no other 
tonic element in the same syllable, all of three syllables ending 
in able, ably, ible, ibly, and all of four syllables ending in 
ableness and ibleness, have the accent on the first. 

4. Words ending in acal, ical, efy, ify, ity, tude, ulous, 
inous, erous, and orous, except canorous and sonorous, have 
the accent on the last syllable but two. 

5. All words ending in cracy, gamy, graphy, pathy, logy, 
phony, nomy, tomy, thropy, and all of three or more syllables 
ending in ative, except creative, have the accent on the last 
syllable but two. 

6. All words ending in sive, and all ending in tive, preceded 
by a single consonant, except adjective and substantive, have 
the accent on the last syllable but one. 

7. All words ending in ia, iac, ial, ion, ious, eous, tion and 
sion, have the accent on the preceding syllable. 

What is Accent ? What effect has it upon utterance ? What other use has 
it? How does the primary accent differ from the secondary? How far 
remote is the secondary accent from the primary ? What is rule first ? 
Rule second? Rule third ? Rule fourth? Rule fifth? Rule sixth ? Rule 
seventh ? 



24 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

8. Many words of two syllables, when used as nouns or 
adjectives, have the accent on the first syllable; and when 
used as verbs, on the second syllable. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. Accent on the first syllable. 

Brutal, manage, claimant, clearance, mated, woollen, archer, 
solvent, payment, sheeting, active, whitish, nameless, thick- 
ness, hardship, lonesome, lonely, spoonful. 

2. Accent on the first syllable. 

Blessedly, blessedness, harmlessly, harmlessness, glaringly, 
glaringness, childishly, childishness, actively, activeness, pom- 
pously, pompousness, lonesomely, lonesomeness, truthfully, 
truthfulness. 

3. Accent on the first syllable. 

Noble, culpable, culpably, legible, legibly, capableness, legi- 
bleness. 

4. Accent on the last syllable but two. 
Heliacal, fanatical, rarefy, diversify, impurity, latitude, 

sedulous, voluminous, pestiferous, carnivorous. 

5. Accent on the last syllable but two. 
Democracy, polygamy, geography, sympathy, astrology, 

euphony, astronomy, anatomy, philanthropy, relative. 

6. Accent on the last syllable but one. 
Convulsive, consumptive, preventive, illusive, attractive. 

7. Accent before the termination. 
Regalia, demoniac, material, christian, dissensions, loqua- 
cious, farinaceous, dissensions, admiration. 

8. Accent according to signification. 
They may concert all the plans they can think of, but they 
shall not defeat my concert. At the present time, I present 
you with no present. I did not record the record you speak 
of, nor did I comment with severity upon your comment. 



What is rule eighth 7 Show tiie application of the rules to the several 
words in the illustrations. Give the reason why the sanrie word in the eighth 
illustration is accented differently. Which accent alone is usually marked 
in dictionaries and spelling-books ? 



PRONUNCIATION. 25 



PRONUNCIATION. 

Pronunciation unites a correct articulation with proper 
accentuation. Its standard is the usage of refined and culti- 
vated society. 

A good pronunciation of one's mother tongue constitutes so essen- 
tial an element in even an ordinary education, that its possession can 
hardly entitle to praise, while its deficiency cannot but be regarded 
as a great fault. 

Pronunciation may be rendered faulty, otherwise than from wrong 
accentuation, in three ways : — 

1. By omission of one or more elements ; as, 'round, 'scribe, 'cur, 
'xist, ev'ry, pr'vent, d'part, sev'ral, w'at, vess'l, an', gover'ment, 
wool'n, bein', doo', wa', for around, ascribe, occur, exist, every, 
prevent, depart, several, what, vessel, and, government, woollen, 
being, door, war. 

2. By sounding letters which should be silent ; as, sounding the b in 
subtle, the h in honest, the e in grovel, the o in unison. 

3. By perversion of sounds; as, ubundance, eatuble, buhold, 
cumpare, seperate, winder, potater, nachure, forchune, Gord, lawr, 
for abundance, eatable, behold, compare, separate, window, potato, 
nature, fortune, God, law. 

Learners, in order to perfect their pronunciation, should frequently 
consult some approved dictionary, and carefully observe the language 
of the best speakers. Many very common errors may be avoided by 
an observance of the following 

RULES FOR PRONUNCIATION. 

1. A unaccented before a consonant always has the sound 
of a heard in at. 

2. A final has the sound of a in arm. 

3. A when used as a word, if emphatic, sounds long, as a 
in ale ; but when not under emphasis, it sounds short, as a 
in at. 

4. E in ed final, when preceded by d or t, has its short 
sound, as in end ; but when preceded by any other consonant, it 
is silent, and the d has its proper sound, unless it comes after 
the elementary sounds of /, k, p, s, and sh, when it sounds 
like t. 

5. E in the word the, before a word beginning with a 
vowel, sounds long, ♦like e in eve; but when, used without 

What is Pronunciation ? What is its standard ? What is said about a 
good pronunciation? In how many ways may pronunciation be rendered 
fauhy ? What is the first fault mentioned ? What the second ? What the 
third ? How may learners improve their pronunciation ? Give the first 
rule. The second. The third. The fourth. The fifth. 

3 



26 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

emphasis before a word beginning with a consonunt, the e is 
short, like e in ebb. 

6. O final, except in who, do, to, two, too, and their com- 
pounds, has the sound of o in old. 

7. O in final unaccented syllables, before m, p, t, ny, and 
ry, has generally the sound of u in up. 

8. XJ coming immediately after the accent, has the long 
sound of u in use, slightly articulated. 

9. Y in my, emphatic, sounds long, like y in type ; but when 
not emphatic, the y sounds short, as y in hymn. 

10. In pronouncing very long words, or a succession of 
words with similar som^ds, particular pains should be taken to 
have the utterance distinct and accurate. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. A unaccented. 

Abode, abuse, acute, adopt, atone, amuse, citadel, diadem, 
privateer, curative, capable, orator, primary, notary, realize, 
ligament, permanence, caravan, infamy. 

2. A final 

Comma, dogma, stigma, era, sofa, umbrella, opera, retina, 
peninsula, phenomena, influenza, panorama, formula, stamina, 
America, Indiana. 

3. Ed final. 

Blinded, budded, fended, counted, fainted, trusted, farmed, 
scanned, rolled, called, laughed, blacked, capped, crossed, 
pushed. 

4. O final. 

Embargo, tomato, potato, mulatto, negro, tobacco, morocco, 
prunello, musqueto. 

5. O unaccented before m, p, and ny, and ry, final. 

Atom, fathom, venom, buxom, gallop, develop, envelop, 
bigot, pivot, idiot, patriot, agony, ebony, felony, colony, har- 
mony, monotony, memory, pillory, factory, victory, ivory, 
armory. 

6. V after the accent. 

Educate, modulate, nature, creature, capture, vesture, in- 

Give the sixth rule. The seventh. The eighth. The ninth. The tenth. • 
Show the application of the rules to the several illustrations. What is 
accent ? Point out the accented syllable in each example. 



PRONUNCIATION. 



27 



jure, vulture, admixture, manufacture, petulance, importunate, 
salutary, credulous, tremulous, regular, popular. 

7. A^ the, and my. 

Did you speak of a^ man, or of the^ man ? 
A cloud of dust was raised at the distance of a few rods. 
I strike for my^ liberty, and not for yours. 
An arrow from my bow had pierced their chief. 
My lords, I am stating one or two of the prominent evils of 
the system. 

The gentleman has lost the way to the city. 

8. Very Long Words. 

The unceremoniousness of their communicability is wholly 
inexplicable. 

Most hypocritically he managed his part in the counter-rev- 
olutionary movement. 

Authoritatively and peremptorily he forbade all intercom- 
munication. 

Such extraordinary untractableness manifested anything 
but disinterestedness. 

9. Succession of Similar Sounds. 

The blind man bewailed the blast. 
Who can say crackers, crime, cruelty, crucible ? 
I think it my duty to do my duty, when it is my duty to do 
my duty. 

Her rough and rugged rocks, that rear their hoary heads 
high in air. 

I never saw such a saw as this saw, saw six sleek slim sap- 
lings. 

We wistfully watched wrathful waters wildly play. 
Lamely limped the lonely lion along the lane. 
I say that that, that that man said, is not that, that that 
man told him. 

When a twister twisting would twist him a twist, 
For twisting a twist three twists he will twist ; 
But if one of the twists untwists from the twist, 
The twist untwisting untwists the twist. 

Robert Rowley rolled a round roll round ; 

A round roll Robert Rowley rolled round ; round 

Where rolled the round roll, Robert Rowley rolled. 

What is elocution ? Upon what does good pronunciation depend ? 



* The long sound of the vowel by emphasis. 



ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 



EMPHASIS. 

Emphasis is that expressive force of utterance, applied to 
certain significant words, by which they are distinguished 
from others in a sentence. 

Ordinary emphasis may be considered as an extension of accent ; 
and, as such, is most commonly produced by pronouncing the accented 
syllable with such additional loudness and quantity of voice as to give 
the whole word a peculiar and marked distinction. 

Sometimes, however, it may be noted with the greatest effect by 
a low or whispered utterance. 

Emphatic words are usually denoted in type by italic letters; 
those more emphatic by small capitals ; those more emphatic by 
LARGE CAPITALS, &c. 

Emphasis is termed absolute, when it gives expressive force to a 
thought or feeling, solely or singly considered ; relative, when applied 
to words in contrast ; and cumulative, when the force of utterance is 
accumulated on several successive words ; and when these words 
form an entire clause, it is called an emphatic phrase. 

Upon the right management of emphasis depends, in a great degree, 
the life and beauty of reading and speaking. If it be entirely omitted, 
discourse is not only uninteresting and dead, but obscure in its 
meaning. But when rightly used, every idea stands out in its proper 
relief, and thus produces a suitable impression upon the mind of the 
hearer. 

The most common errors in emphasis are, — 

1. Want of force. This defect, which never fails to produce a 
disagreeable monotony, may be easily remedied by distinctness and 
energy. 

2. Too much force. The effect of this, especially when the stress 
is all laid upon one word, is to leave little or no power of giving a 
just force to other words, which, though not equally, are in a certain 
degree emphatic. 

3 . Placing stress upon too many words. This fault tends to destroy 
all regard for emphasis. For if it be much multiplied, it amounts to 
little less than no such distinction of words. 

rules for emphasis. 

1. Every word or phrase expressive of any new or impor- 
tant idea in discourse, requires to be marked by some 
emphasis. 

2. Interjections, and all exclamatory words, are generally 
strongly emphatic. 

3. All correspondent and antithetic words, and such as 
mark discrimination of ideas, are emphatic. 

What is emphasis ? How may ordinary emphasis be considered ? How- 
are emphatic words denoted ? When is emphasis termed absolute ? When 
relative ? When cumulative ? Mention some of the most common errors in 
emphasis. What is rule first ? Rule second 7 Rule third ? 



EMPHASIS. - 29 

4. Repetition of words and phrases, and any successio7i of 
particulars, generally require force of utterance increasing 
with the repetition or emphasis of the cumulative kind. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. New or Important Ideas. 

The whole summit of the hill, which commanded the city, 
blazed like a volcano. 

Not a breeze whispered, not a bird flapped its wings. 

The horrors of war were the burden of his song. Christian- 
ity bears all the marks of a divine original. 

2. Interjections and Exclamations. 
Oh ! Sacred Truth ! thy triumph ceased a while. 
How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood. 
O Caledonia ! stern and wild. 
Meet nurse for a poetic child. 
Sweet Teviot ! on thy silver tide 
The glaring bale-fires blaze no more. 
O FOOLS ! and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets 
have written concerning me ! 

They shouted ; France ! Spain ! Albion ! VICTORY ! 

3. Antithesis and Contrast. 

This is the main point, — not universal progress, but human 
progress — not progress ez^er^/where, but progress 507?zewhere. 

Crafty men contemn studies ; simple men admire them. 

Contemporaries appreciate the man, rather than the merit ; 
but posterity will regard the merit, rather than the man. 

We are not to inquire into the justice or mjustice,^ the 
honoY or dish.onoT,^ of the deed ; nor whether it was lawixxX 
or ziTilawful,^ wise or wnwise.^ 

4. Cumulative Emphasis. 

It is pleasant to grow better, because that is to excel aar- 
selves ; it is pleasant to subdue sins, because that is victory ; 
it is pleasant to govern our appetites and passions, because 
that is EMPIRE. 

He prayed but for life — for life he would have given all he 

What is rule fourth '? Show the application of the rules by the illustra- 
tions. What is meant by antithesis 7 What by contrast ? 



* Emphasis often changes the seat of the accent. 
3^' 



30 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

had in the world ; it was but for life he asked — LIFE, if it 
were to be prolonged under tortures and privations. 

My first argument for the adoption of this measure is, the 
'people demand it. My second argument is, the people 
DEBiAND IT. My third argument is, THE PEOPLE DE- 
MAND IT. 



PAUSES. 



To any suspension of the voice in discourse, longer than a 
momentary rest, the term pause is applied. 

The pauses required in order clearly to display the sentiment and 
thought are called rhetorical, to distinguish them from the grammat- 
ical points, which relate simply to the grammatical construction of 
words and sentences. 

The pauses peculiar to poetry, and designed to increase the beauty 
and melody of verse, are termed harmonic. These are usually con- 
sidered as two ; the one being called the casural, and the other the 
final harmonic pause. 

The punctuation marks denote only incidentally the places of either 
the rhetorical or harmonic rests of the voice ; being together by much 
the most numerous, while the former, especially the comma, occurs 
sometimes where there should be no pause in reading or speaking. 
Nor can the length of any required stop be inferred with much cer- 
tainty from the common stop mark used. At the same stop mark in 
different situations, though in near connection, the intervals of rest 
may materially vary. 

The length of pauses is not fixed and invariable, and so cannot be 
brought under precise rules. There are, however, a few general 
principles which may be safely observed as far as they have appli- 
cation. 

1. One is, that pause should be proportioned to the rate of utter- 
ance — the intervals of rest being comparatively long when the rate 
is slow, and short when it is quick. 

2. Another is, that the relative length of pause must be modified 
by the degree of connection in the thought, and by the completeness of 
the sense. Thus the pause at the end of a sentence must usually be 
two or three times longer than those separating its parts ; and that at 
the end of a paragraph, several times longer than those between its 
sentences. So, also, the closer the connection of sense between 
clauses, sentences, or paragraphs, the shorter comparatively must be 
their intervening pauses. 

3. A third principle is, that a pause may be lengthened in propor- 
tion to the degree of emphasis which may happen to accompany it. 

What is meant by pause ? Which are rhetorical pauses ? To what do the 
erarnmatical points relate ? Name the pauses peculiar to poetry. Can the 
length of ajiause be told by the stop mark 7 Is there any fixed length for 
pauses ? To virhat should the length of pauses be proportioned ? By whaX 
may the same be modified 7 What is the third principle given 7 



PAUSES. 31 



RULES FOR RHETORICAL AND HARMONIC PAUSES. 

1. A pause is required after the nominative case^ when it 
consists of more than one VN^ord, or is emphatic. 

2. An adjective, placed after its noun, should be separated 
from it by a short pause. 

3. Before the relative pronouns, who, which, that and what^ 
a pause is generally necessary. 

4. There should be a pause before a verb iii the infinitive 
mode, depending upon another verb. 

5. Before conjunctions, prepositions, or adverbs of time and 
similitude, a pause is usually required. 

6. Before and after an intervening phrase, there should be 
a short pause. 

7. A pause is required between the parts of a sentence 
which may be transposed. 

8. After words placed in opposition to each other, there 
should be a pause. 

9. A slight pause should mark an ellipsis, or an omission of 
a word. 

10. A long pause may be made before or after a word or 
clause expyressive of intense feeling or solemn emotion. 

11. The ccBSural pause occurs at or near the middle, and 
the jirml pause at the end, of a poetic line. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. The Nominative Long or E'mphatic. 

A remarkable affair | happened yesterday. 

To be devoid of sense | is a terrible misfortune. 

Industry \ is the guardian of innocence. 

2. Adjective after its Noun. 

He was a man | contented, virtuous, and happy. 
I behold its summit | noble and sublime. 

3. Relative Pronouns, 

Let us look forward to the end of that century | which has 
commenced. 

Spirit I that breathest through my lattice, thou | 
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day. 

His natural instinct discovers | what knowledge can per- 
form. 

What is rule first? Rule second? Rule third? Rule fourth? Rule 
fifth ? Rule sixth ? Rule seventh ? Rule eighth ? Rule ninth ? Rule 
tenth ? Rule eleventh ? 



82 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

There is not a great author here | who did not \vrite for us ; 
not a man of science j who did not investigate for us. We 
have received advantages from every hour of toil | that ever 
made these good and great men weary. 

4. Verb in the Infinitive. 
He daily strove | to elevate their condition. 
Do not dare | to lay your hands on the constitution. 
I had hoped | to have had an opportunity of obliging so 
good a friend. 

5. A Conjunction^ Preposition, or Adverb. 
I have watched their pastimes | and their labors. 
We must not yield | to their foolish entreaties. 
He continued steadfast | like the spring-time. 

6. Intervening Phrase. 
He exhibits | now and then | remarkable genius. 
Trials I in this state of being | are the lot of man. 
Talents ] without industry [ cannot accomplish much. 

7. Transposition of Phrases. 
With famine and death | the destroying angel came. 
To whom I the Goblin, full of wrath, replied. 
The pangs of memory are ] to madness | wrought. 

8. Words in Opposition. 
The morn | was bright, but the eve | was clouded and 
dark. 

Some I place the bliss in action, some | in ease ; 
Those I call it pleasure, and contentment [ these. 

9. An Ellipsis. 

Their palaces were houses not made with hands ; their 
diadems | crowns of glory. 

To our faith we should add virtue ; and to virtue | knowl- 
edge ; and to knowledge | temperance ; and to temperance | 
patience ; and to patience | godliness ; and to godliness | broth- 
erly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness | charity. 

* 10. Word or Clause. 

Banished | from Eome ! What 's banished, but set free ? 
And their young voices rose | a vengeance cry to God ! 
And made \ me \ a poor orphan boy. 

What is meant by an intervening phras»? What by transposition of 
phrases ? What by opposition of words ? What is an ellipsis ? 



INFLECTION. 

11. Poetic Lines. 
It trod the hall of revelry, 1 1 where thronged 1 1 
The bright and joyous ; || and the tearful wail II 
Of stricken ones is heard || where erst the song II 
And reckless shout resounded. 
Now, o'er the mount || the radiant legions hung, 
Like plumy travellers || from climes remote 11 
On some sequestered isle 1 1 about to stoop. 
He rends the oak || and bids it ride ; 

To guard the shores 1 1 its beauty graced ; 
He smites the rock, || upheaved in pride, 

See towers of strength || and domes of taste. 
Placed I on an isthmus 1 1 of a middle I state, 
A being I darkly wise 1 1 and rudely I great.=^ 



33 



INFLECTION. 



Inflection denotes the slides of the voice from its geneial 
level in pronouncing a sentence. 

The upward slide is called the rising inflection ; and the 
dowTiward slide, ih.Q falling inflection. 

The inflection, whether rising or falling, begins at the accented 
syllable of the emphatic word. Its extent depends upon the intensity 
of the prompting emotion, and upon the length of the clause or 
sentence to which it belongs. The longer the expression, the more 
marked will generally be the height of the rising, or the depth of the 
falling inflection. 

The circumflex or wave is the union of both slides upon 
the same syllable or word, producing a sort of undulation or 
wave of the voice ; and this, when it begins with the falling 
and ends with the rising slide, is called the rising circumflex ; 
and when it begins with the rising and ends with the falling 
slide, it is called the falling circumflex. 

When the tone of the voice neither rises nor falls, but is 
kept with a comparative sameness of sound on a succession 
of words, it is called the monotone. 

What is meant by inflection ? What is the upward slide called ? What 
the downward slide ? Where does the inflection commence ? Upon what 
does its extent depend ? What is the circumflex 7 What is the monotone ? 



* In the last two lines, a division of the caesura, commonly called the 
demiccESura, is denoted. The more perfect melody of verse sometimes 
requires this. 



34 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

In consequence of faulty early instruction, many persons uniformly 
apply the rising inflection, or " keep the voice up," at every comma 
and semicolon, and the falling inflection, or " let the voice fall," at 
every period. This mechanical sameness of inflection is a very great 
error. The kind of inflection at any pause, whether at the close of 
a sentence, or elsewhere, should be ever strictly in accordance with 
the general nature of the discourse, and the peculiar construction or 
significance of the clause or sentence. 

Sometimes the circumflex is improperly substituted for the rising or 
falling inflection. This error is particularly apt to occur in pro- 
nouncing sentences containing antithetic and contrasted parts. 

A feeble and listless utterance of the monotone is another common 
fault. It may be avoided by uniting with the comparatively level 
tone of the monotone, depth and fulness of voice, with its sound 
increasing somewhat in volume as it proceeds. 

RULES FOR DEFLECTION. 

1. Sentiment expressive of teiider and gentle emotions, also 
that expressive of what is unimportant, inadequate, or trifling, 
inclines to the rising inflection. 

2. A pause denoting that the sense is incomplete^ (unless 
attended with strong emphasis) generally requires the rising 
inflection. 

3. A concession takes the rising inflection. 

4. The last inflection but one, for sake of harmony, is 
usually the rising. 

5. Exclamations of wonder, surprise, and indignation, for 
the most part, take the rising inflection. 

6. A question that can be answered by yes or noi usually 
requires the rising inflection. 

7. A question that can be answered by yes a?' no, when 
attended with strong emphasis, and the reply anticipated, takes 
the falling inflection. 

8. A question that cannot be answered by yes or nof 
usually requires the falling inflection. 

9. Questions stated, or repeated because not understood, 
have their usual inflections reversed. 

10. Answers to all questions take the falling inflection, 
excepting those expressive of indifference, which take the 
opposite inflection. 

What mechanical sameness of inflection is mentioned ? How is the cir- 
cumflex sometimes improperly used? What error in the use of the mono- 
tone? What is rule first ? Rule second? Rule third ? Rule fourth? Rule 
fifth? Rule sixth? Rule seventh? Rule eighth? Rule ninth? Rule 
tenth ? 



♦ Or pause of suspension. t Or the direct question. 



INFLECTION. 35 

11. A clause or sentence making complete sense, indepen- 
dently of what follows, generally ends with the falling inflection. 

12. Language of command, remonstrance, denunciation, 
reproach, and of any vehement emotion, requires the falling 
inflection. 

13. Sentences containing antithetic words or clauses, when 
the contrast is equally balanced, receive the rising inflection 
on the first part, and the falling on the last ; but when the 
contrast is unequally balanced, the part having the greater 
emphasis receives the falling inflection. 

14. When negation is opposed to affirmation, the former 
takes the rising and the latter the falling inflection; the 
reverse, however, may be required, should the negative part 
happen to be emphatic. 

15. A parenthesis generally ends with the same inflection 
as that which next precedes. 

16. Supposition, irony, sarcasm, scorn, derision, and all 
peculiarly significant expressions, require the use of the cir- 
cumflex or wave. 

17. Language peculiarly solemn, grave, or sublime, also 
that expressive of awe, extreme amazement and horror, require 
the monotone. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. Tender and Gentle Emotion. 
Poor boy ! he is very sick, observed the father. 

Few and short were the prayers we said, 

We spoke not a word of sorrow ; 
But steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, 

And bitterly thought of the morrow. 

2. Inadequate or Trifiing Matter. 

A mere apolog}?", uttered apparently in the spirit of indiflfer- 
ence, can hardly satisfy his injured friend. 

3. Pause of Suspension. 

Beauty, strength, youth, and old age, lie undistinguished 
in the same promiscuous heap of matter. 

Of the ten thousand battles which have been fought ; of all 
the fields fertilized with carnage ; of the banners which have 
been bathed in blood ; of the warriors who have hoped that 

What is rule eleventh? Rule twelfth? Rule thirteenth? Rule four- 
teenth? Rule fifteenth ? Rule sixteenth ? Rule seventeenth? 



db ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

they had risen from the field of conquest to a glory as bright 
and as durable as the stars, few continue long to interest man- 
kind. 

4. Concession. 

Painting, poetry, eloquence, and every other art on which the 
genius of mankind has exercised itself, may be abused, and 
prove dangerous in the hands of bad men ; but it were ridicu- 
lous to contend, that on this account, they ought to be abol- 
ished. 

5. Last Inflection hut One. 

Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in 
peace. 

There is no national debt ; the community is opulent ; the 
government economical ; and the public treasury fiJl. 

6. Wonder, Surprise, and Indignation. 
Ha ! com'st thou now so late to mock ? 
What ! yield to so weak a foe ? 
What ! am I braved in my own house ? 

7. Di7'ect Question and Answer. 
Does the gentleman belong in Waterville ? Yes. 
Is he a member of the Institute ? He is. 
Could talent content you ? No ! Enterprise ? No ! Cour- 
age ? No! Reputation? No! Virtue? No! 

8. Direct Question attended with Strong Emphasis. 
Was not Washington a genuine patriot ? 
Will you deny the certainty of the mathematics ? 

9. Indirect Question and Aoiswer. 
When did you visit Melrose ? Last siimmer. 
Where did you find him ? At the academy. 

10. Questions Stated or Repeated. 

The question before the meeting is, — Shall we admit 
strangers ? 

What did you ask ? — I asked, was it you ? 

11. Answers Expressive of Indifference. 
Did yon care for it ? Not much. 
Have you read the poems ? I have looked them over. 

What is the definitiou of concession ? How does the direct question differ 
from the indirect ? What is nrieant by a clause ? 



INFLECTION. 37 

12. Clauses making Complete Sense. 
The wind and rain are over ; calm is the noon of day ; the 
clouds are divided in heaven f^ over the green hill flies the 
inconstant sun. 

13. Command, Remonstrance, Denunciation, and Reproach. 
Strike for your homes and liberty, 
And the Heaven you worship o'er you ! 
Spare him, by our many tears, — 
Spare him, as thou wodldst be spared ! 
Woe unto thee, wicked city, woe unto thee ! 
Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward ! 

14. Equal Contrast. 
The style of Demosthenes is nervous ; that of Cicero, flowing 
and graceful. The latter kindles the fancy, while the former 
seizes the understanding. 

15. Unequal Contrast. 
He is more a cold blooded miirderer, than a poor deluded 
enthusiast. 

Such a man is more deserving of punishment, than com- 
miseration. 

16. Negation and Affirmation. 
This is no time for a tribunal of justice, but for showing 
mercy ; not for accusation, but for philanthropy ; not for trial, 
but for pardon ; not for sentence and execution, but for com- 
passion and kindness. 

You were paid to fight against Alexander, and not to rail 
at him. 

We are surrounded by a multitude of temptations, yet not 
overwhelmed.! 

17. Parenthesis. 
If there 's a power above, (and that there is, 
All nature cries aloud in all her works,) 
He must delight in virtue. 
Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the 
law,) that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he 
liveth ? 

What is the definition of remonstrance ? Of denunciation ? Of reproach ? 
Of contrast ? Of negation ? Of affirmation ? What is a parenthesis ? 



* See Rule Fourth. t Inflections reversed by emphasis. 

4 



38 



ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 



18. Supposition, Irony, Sarcasm, Scorn and Derision, 

If you said so, then I said so. 
You did no mischief, — oh no ! 

They tell us to be moderate, but they revel m profusion. 
Most courteous tyrants ! Romans ! rare patterns of hu- 
manity ! 

So even ran his line of life. 
His neighbors thought it odd. 

19. Solemnity, Sublimity, Awe, Amazement and Horror, 

When night, with wings of starry gloom, 

O'ershadows all the earth and skies, 
Like some dark, beaiiteous bird, whose plume 

Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes ; 
That sacred gloom, those fires divine, 
So grand, so countless, Lord ! are thine. 

He stood and measured the earth; he beheld and drove 
asunder the nations; the everlasting mountains were scat- 
tered ; the perpetual hills did bow. 



PITCH. 



Pitch of voice has relation to the note which prevails in 
our speaking or reading. 

Beauty and correctness of rhetorical expression depend essentially 
upon a voice so skilfully managed as readily to adapt its key to the 
proper utterance of any sentiment or passion. 

The speaking voice is capable of as many variations of note as are 
marked on the musical scale. But for all the purposes of ordinary 
elocution, it will be sufficiently exact if we make of pitch a five-fold 
division, into 

MIDDLE, HIGH, VERY HIGH, LOW, AND VERY LOW. 

Middle pitch is that heard in common conversation. 

High pitch is that which rises above the usual level of the 
voice. 

Very high pitch is that heard in calling, or shouting, to per- 
sons at a distance. 

Define supposition. Irony. Sarcasm. Scorn. Derision. Solemnity. 
Sublimity. Awe. Amazement. Horror. What is Pitch? Divisions 
of pitch? What is middle pitch ? High pitch? Very high pitch ? 



PITCH. 39 

Low pitch is that which falls below the usual level of the 
voice. 

Very low pitch is that heard in the deepest utterance. 

The following errors in pitch are particularly to be guarded 
against : — 

1. Beginning of every sentence with comparatively a high pitchy 
and then sinking gradually down into a low note ; a fault which, at 
the same time that it perverts the sense, by giving undue prominence 
to mere sentences, wearies the ear by the constant occurrence of a 
dwindling cadence. 

2. Rising into too high, or falling into too low a pitch for the 
natural compass of the voice. By the one extreme the voice is ren- 
dered harsh, or breaks ; while by the other the utterance is obscured. 

3. Want of variation. By a continued utterance on the same key 
the lungs of the speaker suffer for want of variety of action, and the 
hearer is fatigued by a dull monotony of sound. 

RULES FOR PITCH. 

1. TJnimpassioned thought and moderate emotion require 
the middle pitch. 

2. High pitch is used in expressing joyous and elevated 
feelings. 

3. Very high pitch should mark the utterance of most 
impulsive and uncontrollable emotions. 

4. Low pitch is required in the expression of grave and 
impressive thought ; and is also appropriate to severity of 
manner. 

5. Very low pitch properly belongs to the expression of all 
very deep feelings and emotions. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. Unimpassioned Thought and Moderate Emotion. 

Repose. 

How peaceful the grave ! its quiet how deep ; 
Its zephyrs breathe calmly, and soft is its sleep ; 
And flowerets perfume it with ether. 

Animated Narration. 

It was summer. The sun shone proudly down upon the 
gray mist that rose above the billows. The blushing charms 
of spring were passed, and the summer glow of loveliness had 

What is low pitch ? Very low pitch ? What errors are to be guarded 
against? What is rule first? Rule second ? Rule third? Rule fourth? 
Rule fifth? Apply the rules to the illustrations. Define unimpassioned. 
Repose. Animated. Narration. 



40 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

succeeded. The woodlands were gay and beautiful ; for 
nature had clothed them in all her surpassing splendors. 

2. Joyous and Elevated Feelings. 

Joy. 

Oh ! yonder is the well known spot, 
My dear, my long lost native home ! 

Oh, welcome is yon little cot, 

Where I shall rest, no more to roam ! 

Exultation. 

Away, away ! for the stars are forth, 
And on the pure snows of the valley, 

In a giddy trance, the moonbeams dance — 
Come, let us our comrades rally ! 

3. Impulsive and Uncontrollable Emotions. 

Ecstatic Joy. 

Ye guards of liberty ! 
I 'm with you once again ! — I call to you 
With all my voice ! I hold my hands to you 
To show they still are free. I rush to you 
As though 1 could embrace you ! 

Frenzied Burst of Indignation. 

Ho ! cravens ! do ye fear him ? 

Slaves ! traitors ! have ye flown ? 
Ho ! cowards, have ye left me 

To meet him alone ? 

4. Grave and Impressive Thought. 

Suhlimity. 

All dead and silent was the earth, 

In deepest night it lay ; 
The Eternal spake creation's word, 

And called to being — Day ! 

Reverence. 

Thy word created all, and doth create ; 
Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine. 
Thou art, and wert, and shall be, glorious ! great ! 
Light-giving, life-sustaining Potentate ! 

Defiae joy. Exultation. Impulsive. Uncontrollable. Ecstatic. Frenzied. 
Indignation. Sublimity. Reverence. 



FORCE. 41 

5. Very Deep Feeling and Emotions. 

Melandioly. 

On every nerve 
The deadly Winter seizes ; shuts up sense ; 
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, 
Lays him along the snow, a stiffened corse, 
Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast. 

Awe, 

It thunders ! Sons of dust, in reverence bow ! 
Ancient of Days ! thou speakest from above ; 
Almighty ! Trembling, like a timid child, 
I hear thy awful voice. Alarmed — afraid — 
I see the flashes of thy lightning wild. 
And in the very grave would hide my head. 



FORCE. 

Force refers to loudness of sounds. 

On the same note or key, the voice may vary, according to the 
nature and extent of the prompting emotion, from the slightest whis- 
per up to the utmost vehemence and fulness of sound. But for the 
sake of convenience, the degrees of force may be regarded as six : 
namely — 

1. Suppressed, or that degree of loudness which ranges 
between simple breathing and a complete vocality. 

2. Subdued, or the gentle and softened form of a clear and 
audible utterance. 

3. Moderate, or the medium loudness of the voice. 

4. Energetic, or a degree of sound somewhat more loud 
and strong than the ordinary voice. 

5. Vehement, or an utterance stiU more full and forcible 
than the last. 

6. Sustained, or sound of the greatest degree of volume and 
loudness, issuing as it were in a continuous flow. 

Force has been often very improperly confounded ivith pitch. But 
every one who aims at the attainment of a correct delivery, will be 
careful not to mistake mere elevation or depression of note for loud- 
ness or softness, which relate only to the quantity or fulness of sound. 

Define melancholy. Awe. To which of the illustrations does the mono- 
tone apply? What is Force? How may force vary ? How many degrees 
of force? What is suppressed force? Subdued? Moderate? Energetic? 
Vehement? Sustained? What error is mentioned ? 
4# 



42 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

RULES FOR FORCE. 

1. Suspicion, suppressed fear, caution, secrecy, and all vio' 
lent emotions kept down by the general state of the mind, find 
appropriate expression in suppressed force. 

2. Pathos, solemnity, and all tender and subdued emotions^ 
for the most part, require subdued force. 

3. Simple Tiarration or description, and didactic style, de- 
mand moderate force. 

4. Animated description or Tiarration, ordinary declamatory 
style, and energetic feeling, require energetic force. 

5. Unrestrained expressions of violent passion and vehement 
emotion naturally demand vehement force. 

6. Shouting and calling require the sustained or the fullest 
and strongest form of force. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. Suspicion and Fear. 

Alas ! I am afraid they have awaked, 
And 't is not done ; the attempt, and not the deed, 
Confounds us. — Hark ! I laid the daggers ready ; 
He could not miss them. Had he not resembled 
My father as he slept, I had done it. 

2. Caution and Secrecy. 

With searching eye, and stealthy tread. 
The man of wrath sought his enemy's bed. 

3. Pathos and Solemnity. 

Tread softly — bow the head — 

In reverent silence bow ; 
No passing bell doth toll — 
Yet an immortal soul 

Is passing now. 

4. Tranquillity. 

That silent moon, that silent moon. 
Careering now through cloudless sky ! 

Oh ! who shall tell what varied scenes 
Have passed beneath her placid eye, 

What is rule first? Rule second? Rule third? Rule fourth? Rule 
fifth ? Rule sixth ? Apply the rules to the illustrations. Define suspicion. 
Fear. Secrecy. Pathos. Solemnity. Tranquillity. 



FORCE. 43 

Since first, to light this wayward earth, 
She walked in tranquil beauty forth ! 

5. Simple Description. 

The streets were almost impassable, from the countless 
multitude ; the windows and balconies were crowded with 
the fair; the very roofs were covered with spectators. It 
seemed as if the public eye could not be sated with gazing on 
these trophies of an unknown world, or on the remarkable 
man by whom it had been discovered. 

6. Didactic Style. 

The soul which is not large enough for the indwelling of 
one virtue, affords lodgment, and scope, and arena, for a 
hundred vices. But their warfare cannot be indulged with 
impunity. Agitation and wretchedness are the inevitable 
consequences, in the midst of which the flame of life bums 
flaringly and swiftly to its close. 

7. Animated Description. 

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, 

When fond recollection presents them to view ! 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood, 

And every loved spot which my infancy knew. 
The wide -spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it, 

The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell, 
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it. 

And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well ; 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. 

The moss-covered bucket, that hung in the well. 

8. Energetic Address. 

Advance, ye future generations ! We would hail you, as 
you rise in your long succession, to fill the places which we 
now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence where we are 
passing, and soon shall have passed, our human duration. 
We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the fathers. 
We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we 
have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good 
government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the 
immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal 
hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting Truth ! 

Define didactic. Animated. Energetic. 



44 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

9. Anger and Rage. 

, Hear me, rash man ! on thy allegiance, hear me ! 
Since thou hast striven to make us break our vow, 
Which nor our nature nor our place can bear, 
We banish thee forever from our sight. 
And kingdom I If when three days are expired, 
Thy hated trunk be found in our dominions, 
That moment is thy death, — away ! 

10. Impetuous Courage. 

Now for the fight ! now for the cannon peal ! 
Forward ! — through blood, and toil, and cloud, and fire. 
Glorious the shout, the shock, the crash of steel, 
The volley's roll, the rocket's blasting spire ! 

11. Calling. 

What, ho ! Lord William, rise in haste ! 
A flood surrounds thy walls. 

12. , Shouting. 

Let loud Echo, from her circling hills, 
Sound freedom, till the undulation shake 
The bounds of utmost Sweden. 



STRESS. 



Stress denotes the manner of applying force in the utter- 
ance of single sounds. It is called 

Radical, when the force of utterance, commencing abruptly, 
is applied to the first part of a sound ; 

Vanishing, when the force is thrown out at the end of a 
sound which terminates abruptly ; 

Median, when the force is given on the middle of a sound ; 

Compound, when the voice is strongly thrown out at the 
first and last part of a sound, leaving the intermediate portion 
comparatively without stress ; 

Thorough, when a marked force, commencing and ending 
abruptly, is applied to all parts of a sound ; 

Define anger. Rage. Impetuous courage. Alarm. What does Stress 
denote? When is stress called radical ? When vanishing? When median ? 
When compound ? When thorough ? 



STRESS. 45 

Intermittent, when the force of utterance is broken into 
parts, by a quiver or tremor of voice. 

Each of these forms has its pecuhar significance. Some one of 
them enters as an element into the enunciation of almost every 
emphatic sound. 

RULES FOR STRESS. 

1. Anger, fear, impetuous courage, and all sudden and 
startling emotions, also, to some extent, animated discussion, 
require the radical stress. 

2. Obstinacy, fixed determination, sullenness, anxious alarm, 
peevishness, and impatience, usually take, as their most natu- 
ral form of utterance, the vanishing stress. 

3. Dignified and elevated sentiment, also, gentle emotions, 
demand median stress. 

4. Compound stress belongs to the expression of surprise, 
and sometimes marks the utterance of raillery, earnest inter- 
rogation, and importunate entreaty. 

5. Vehement address and highly impassioned feelings require 
thorough stress. 

6. Such emotions as have an effect to enfeeble the voice 
demand the intermittent stress. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. Fear. 
Ha ! dost thou not see it, by the moon's trembling light ! 

2. Impetuous Courage. 
To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! they cry ; 
Lead us to Philippi's lord ; 
Let us conquer him, or die ! 

3. Obstinate Determination. 
I ne'er will ask ye quarter, 

And I ne'er will be your slave ; 
But I '11 swim the sea of slaughter, 

Till I sink beneath the wave. 

4. Impatience. 
Oh ! he 's as tedious 
As is a tired horse, or a railing wife. 

When is stress called intermittent 7 Give the rule for radical stress. 
For vanishing stress. For median stress. For compound stress. For vehe- 
ment stress. For intermittent stress. Apply the rules to the illustrations. 
Define impetuous. Courage. Obstinate. Determination. Impatience. 



46 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

5. Pathos and Solemnity. 

Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 

From the field of his fame fresh and gory ; 

We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, 
But we left him alone in his glory. 

6. Elevated Sentiment. 

We have a common stock both of happiness and of dis- 
tinction, of which we are all entitled, as citizens of the 
country, to partake. We may all rejoice in the general 
prosperity, in the peace and security which we enjoy, and in 
the brilliant success which has thus far attended our repub- 
lican institutions. 

7. Surprise. 

I be nominated, — I go to Congress ! Who says it, — who 
believes it ? It can't be so. 



8. Earnest Interrogation. 

And, sir, has it come to this ? Are we so humbled, so low, 
so despicable, that we dare not express our sympathy for 
suffering Greece — that we dare not express our horror, artic- 
ulate our detestation of the most brutal and atrocious war that 
ever stained earth, or shocked high heaven ? 

9. Yehement Command. 

Up with my banner on the wall,— 

The banquet board prepare ; 
Throw wide the portals of my hall. 

And bring my armor there ! 

10. Indignxmt E^notion. 

Tried and convicted traitor I who says this ? 
Who '11 prove it, at his peril, on my head ? 

11. Voice enfeebled by Rapture. 

glorious hour ! O blest abode ! 

1 shall be near and like my God ! 

Define surprise. Interrogation. Vehement. Indignant. Rapture. 



QUALITY. 47 

12. Voice enfeebled by Weariness and Hunger, 
Dear master, I can go no further ! Oh, 1 die for food ! 
Here lie I down and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind 
master ! 



QUALITY. 

Quality signifies the kind of sound uttered. 
The kinds or qualities of voice most directly affecting vocal 
expresssion are 

THE PURE TONE, THE OROTUND, THE ASPIRATED AND THE 
GUTTURAL. 

The pure tone is distinguished by its freedom from all 
harsh and impure properties, being a clear, even and smooth 
flow of sound, accompanied, usually, with a pitch rather ele- 
vated, and softened or moderate force, and a clear, ringing 
resonance in the head. 

The orotund voice combines, with purity of sound, depth, 
weight, and roundness ; and is so formed as to produce a clear 
resonance of the voice, not only in the head, but in the chest. 

The aspirated voice is exhibited whenever the utterance is 
attended with unvocalized sound. 

The guttural quality unites, with simple aspiration, an 
impure sound, produced by contraction of the upper part of 
the throat. 

The orotund requires expansion of the chest, depression of the 
larynx, full and unobstructed opening of the throat, with extension 
of the cavity of the mouth. 

The aspirated voice is generally the result of the organs of speech 
being too much under the influence of certain strong and forcible 
feelings to be able to convert all the breath thrown upon them into 
vocalized expression. 

The guttural is always accompanied with some other quality, and 
seldom applies to more than a few peculiarly expressive words or 
phrases in the same connection. 

Frequent practice of the pure tone and the orotund affords the best 
means of rendering utterance clear, full, strong, and melodious. 

Plaintiven£ss of Speech is the result of what is called a 
semi tonic movement of the voice. 

Ordmarily the voice, in its ascent or descent, with regard to the 
musical scale, is through whole tones ; but in the plaintive form, its 

What does quality signify ? Which are the principal kinds ? How is 
the pure tone distinguished ? What is the orotund voice ? The aspirated ? 
The guttural ? What does the orotund voice require ? Of what is the as- 
pirated voice the result ? What is said of the guttural voice ? Of the prac- 
tice of the pure tone and the orotund ? Of what is plaintiveness the result 7 



48 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

range is limited either in upward or downward slide, or both, by half 
tone intervals. 

The plaintive is better suited than any other kind of voice to sub- 
due and soften, and to enlist sympathy. Its peculiar touching and 
moving effects are very much augmented by combination with the 
monotone, or intermittent stress. 

Plain tiveness is usually exhibited with purity of tone, but may 
sometimes very properly be an accompaniment of the orotund or 
aspirated voice. 

RULES FOR QUALITY. 

1. Cheerfulness^ gayety^joy, pathos, love, sorrow, solemnity, 
and tranquillity, when not combined with other emotions, 
require the pure tone. 

2. Pathos, solemnity, tranquillity, and joy, when combined 
with grandeur or sublimity, also energetic or vehement forms 
of address, for the most part, demand the orotund. 

3. Wonder, amazement, terror, horror, excessive anger, re- 
venge, despair and remorse, also most ardent and fervent forms 
of expression, usually require the aspirated quality. 

4. Hatred, malignity, aversion, loathing, contempt, impa- 
tience, and the like feelings, require guttural quality. 

5. Grief, sorrow, complaint, lamentation, penitence, commis- 
eration, tenderness, supplication, and entreaty, usually demand 
an expression more or less of a plaintive nature. • 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. Cheerfulness and Gayety. 
When o'er the hills, like a gladsome bride, 
Morning Avalks forth in her beauty's pride, 
And, leading a band of laughing hours. 
Brushes the dew from the nodding flowers ; 
Oh ! cheerily then my voice is heard. 
Mingling with that of the soaring bird. 

2. Joy. 
Then is Orestes blest ! My griefs are fled ! 
Fled like a dream ! Methinks I tread in air ! 
Surprising happiness ! unlocked for joy ! 
Never let love despair ! Thy prize is mine ! 

3. Ij)ve and Tenderness^ 
Me let the tender office long engage, 
To rock the cradle of reposing age ; 

To what is plaintiveness suited ? With what is it acconipanied ? What 
is rule first? Rule second? Rule third ? Rule fourth ? Rule fifth? Ap- 
ply the rules to the illustrations. Define cheerfulness. Gayety. Joy. 



* Plaintive. 



QUALITY. 49 

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, 
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, 
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye. 
And keep at least one parent from the sky. 

4. Pathos, Solemnity, and Grandeur. 

The year 
Has gone, and with it many a glorious throng 
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on the brow. 
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course 
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful ; 
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand 
Upon the strong man ; and the haughty form 
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. 
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged 
The bright and joyous ; and the tearful wail 
Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song 
And reckless shout resounded. 

5. Solemnity and Sublimity. 

The hills, 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales, 
Stretching in pensive quietness between, — 
The venerable woods, — rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks. 
That make the meadows green, — and, poured 'round all, 
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. 

6. Joy and Sublimity. 

Awake, my heart, awake ! 
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn ! 
Ye living flowers, that skirt the eternal frost! 
Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest ! 
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm ! 
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! 
Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! — 
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise ! 

7. Earnest and Energetic Address. 

I hope, sir, that gentlemen will deliberately survey the 

awful isthmus on which we stand. They may bear down all 

opposition. They may carry the measure triumphantly 

through this house. But if they do, sir, in my humble judg- 

Define pathos. Grandeur. Energetic. 

5 



50 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

ment, it will be a triumph of the military over the civil 
authority — a triumph over the powers of this house — a 
triumph over the constitution of the land — and I pray, sir, 
most devoutly, that it may not prove, in its ultimate effects 
and consequences, a triumph over the liberties of the people. 

8. Vehement Command. 

Strike till the last armed foe expires ! 
Strike for your altars and your fires ! 
Strike for the green graves of your sires ! 
God, and your native land ! 

9. Wonder and Amazement. 

How ill this taper burns ! Ha ! who comes here ! 
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes. 
That shapes this monstrous apparition ! 
It comes upon me ! — Art thou anything ? 

10. Terror and Horror. 

Have mercy, Heaven ! — Ha ! soft ! 't was but a dream ! 
But then so terrible, it shakes my soul ! 
Cold drops of sweat hang on my trembling flesh ! 
My blood grows chilly, and I freeze with horror ! 

11. Despair and Remorse. 

With diadem and sceptre high advanced, 
The lower still I fall, only supreme 
In misery ! Such joy ambition finds ! 

12. Anger and Revenge. 

O, that the slave had forty thousand lives ! 
One is too poor, too weak, for my revenge ! 
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell ! 
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearty throne 
To tyrannous hate ! 

13. Ardent 'Expression of Courage. 

You see yon foremost squadron there, 

The thickest of the foes. 

And there your banner goes ! 
Let him that serves and honors it 

Show the duty that he owes ! 

Define vehement. Wonder. Amazement. Terror. Horror. Despair. 
Remorse. Anger. Revenge, 



- QUALITY. 51 

14. Hatred and Aversion. 
I hate him, for he is a Christian ; 
But more, for that, in low simplicity, 
He lends out money gratis, and brings down 
The rate of usance with us here in Venice. 
If I can catch him once upon the hip, 
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him ! 

15. Loathing and Contempt. 
Thou worm ! thou viper ! — to thy native earth 
Return ! Away ! Thou art too base for man 
To tread upon. — Thou scum ! Thou reptile ! 

16. Impatie7ice. 

Brutus. Shall I be frighted when a madman stares ? 
Cassius. O ye gods ! ye gods ! must I endure all this ? 

17. Complaint and Lamentation.^ 

Alas ! my noble boy ! that thou should st die ! 

Thou who wert made so beautifully fair ! 
That death should settle in thy glorious eye. 

And leave his stillness in this clustering hair ! 
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb, 

My proud boy, Absalom ! 

18. Supplication and Entreaty.^ 

Forsake me not thus, Adam ! Witness, Heaven, 

What love sincere, and reverence in my heart, 

I bear thee, and unwitting have offended, 

Unhappily deceived ! Thy suppliant, 

I beg and clasp thy knees ; bereave me not. 

Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid, 

Thy counsel in this uttermost distress, 

My only strength and stay. Forlorn of thee, 

Whither should I betake me, where subsist ? 

19. Grief, Sorrow, and Commiseration.^ 

As the men approached with cords to lower the coffin into 
the grave, she wrung her hands, and broke into an agony of 
grief. The poor woman who attended her took her by the 

Define hatred. Aversion. Loathing. Contempt. Impatience. Lamen- 
tation. Supplication. Entreaty. Sorrow. 



* Plaintive. 



52 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

arm, endeavoring to raise her from the earth, and to whisper 
something hke consolation. "Nay, now, — nay, now, — 
don't take it so sorely to heart." She could only shake her 
head and wrino; her hands, as one not to be comforted. 



MOVEMENT. 



Movement, in elocution, as in music, refers to the time or 
rate of utterance. 

The most common distinctions of movement are into mod- 
erate^ slow, very slaw, lively, brisk, and rapid. 

The degree or kind of movement must correspond with the pervad- 
ing sentiment of the language, the action described, and the nature 
of the feeling or emotion expressed. 

The rate of utterance for unimpassioned thought is usually mode- 
rate ; and that for impassioned expression, quick proportionably as 
the feehng is lively or rapid, or slow proportionably as the emotion 
is more or less grave and deep. 

The fault in movement most to be guarded against by readers and 
speakers is, that of a uniform use of either a moderate, slow, or quick 
rate, without regard to the sentiment or language uttered. 

RULES FOR MOVEMENT. 

1. Didactic thought, and simple narration or description, 
require the moderate movement. 

2. Pathos, reverence, solemnity, and language expressive of 
grandeur, vastness, and the like, demand the slow movement. 

3. Deep solemnity, adoration, awe, horror and consternation, 
require very slow movement. 

4. Cheerfulness, liveliness, and the gentler forms of all vivid 
emotions, find appropriate utterance in the lively movement. 

5. Gayety, joy and humor, demand the brisk movement. 

6. Hurry, confusion, violent anger and sudden fear, require 
the rapid rate of utterance. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. Didactic Thought and Simple Narration. 
The old philosopher we read of, might not have been 
dreaming when he discovered that the order of the sky was 
like a scroll of written music, and that two stars (which are 

To what does Movement refer? Which are the common distinctions of 
movement 7 To what must the movement correspond ? What fauh is men- 
tioned? What is the rule for moderate movement? For slow movement? 
For very slow movement? For lively movement? For brisk movement? 
For rapid movement ? Define didactic. Apply the rules. 



MOVEMENT. 53 

said to have appeared centuries after his death, in the very- 
places he mentioned) were wanting to complete the harmony. 
We know how wonderful are phenomena of color; how 
strangely like consummate art the strongest dyes are blended 
in the plumage of birds, and in the cups of flowers ; so that, 
to the practised eye of the painter, the harmony is inimitably 
perfect. It is natural to suppose every part of the universe 
equally perfect ; and it is a glorious and elevating thought, 
that the stars of heaven are moving on continually to music ; 
and that the sounds we daily listen to are but parts of a melody 
that reaches to the very centre of God's illimitable spheres. 

2. Grandeur and Vastness. 

And these are suns ! — Vast, central, living fires, 
Lords of dependent systems, kings of worlds 
That wait as satellites upon their power. 
And flourish in their smile. Awake, my soul, 
And meditate the wonder ! Countless suns 
Blaze round thee, leading forth their countless worlds ! — 
Worlds, in whose bosoms living things rejoice, 
And drink the bliss of being from the fount 
Of all-pervading love ! What mind can know, 
What tongue can utter, all their multitudes, — 
Thus numberless in numberless abodes ? 

3. Solemnity and Pathos. 

Ye 've gathered to your place of prayer, 

With slow and measured tread ; 
Your ranks are full, your mates all there, 

But the soul of one has fled. 

He was the proudest in his strength, 

The manliest of ye all ; 
Why lies he at that fearful length, 

And ye around his pall ? 

4. Profound Reverence and Adoration. 

Oh ! thoughts ineffable ! Oh ! visions blest ! 

Though worthless our conceptions all of thee. 
Yet shall thy shadowed image fill our breast. 

And waft its homage to thy Deity. 
God ! thus alone my lonely thoughts can soar ; 

Thus seek Thy presence. Being wise and good ! 
'Midst Thy vast works admire, obey, adore ! 

Define grandeur. Vastness. Pathos, Reverence. Adoration. 

5# 



54 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

' 5. Deep Solemnity, Awe, and Consternation. 

Night, sable goddess ! from her ebon throne, 
In rayless majesty now stretches forth 
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world. 
Silence how dead ! and darkness how profound ! 
Nor eye nor listening ear an object finds. 

6. Cheerfulness. 

Sweet are the uses of adversity, — 
And this our life, exempt from public haunts, 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 

7. Lively Description. 

A farmer once to London went, 
To pay the worthy Squire his rent ; 
He comes, he knocks, soon entrance gains, — 
Who at the doors such guests detains ? 
Forth struts the squire, exceeding smart — 
" Farmer, you 're welcome to my heart. 
You 've brought my rent then to a hair ! 
The best of tenants, I declare ! " 

8. Joy and Mirth. 

There is joy in the mountain ; the bright waves leap, 
Like the bounding stag when he breaks from sleep ; 
Mirthfully, wildly, they flash along — 
Let the heavens ring with song ! 

9. Gayety and Humoi'. 

The stars are rolling in the sky, 

The earth rolls on below, 
And we can feel the rattling wheel 

Revolving as we go. 

Then tread away, my gallant boys, . 

And make the axle fly, — 
Why should not wheels go round about, 

Like planets in the sky ? 

10. Sudden Fear. 

But hark ! that heavy sound breaks in once more, 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat ! 
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! 

Define awe. Consternation. Cheerfulness. Mirth. Humor. 



GENERAL KEMAUKS. 



55 



11. Violent Anger. 

Tut ! tut ! 
Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle ! 
I am no traitor's uncle ! and that word, grace, 
In an ungracious mouth, is but profane. 

12. Hurry and Haste. 
More rapid than eagles his coursers they come ; 
And he whistled and shouted, and called them by name. 
Now, Dasher I now, Dancer ! now, Prancer! now, Vixen ! 
On, Comet ! on, Cupid ! on, Donder and Blixen — 
To the top of the porch ! to the top of the wall ! 
Now, dash away ! dash away ! dash away, all ! 



GENERAL REMARKS. 

The elements which have been explained in the foregoing 
analysis admit of various combinations. Every shade of 
style or sentiment, to some extent, presents a peculiar combi- 
nation of principles. Even in the same piece there may be 
variations demanding kinds of expression widely differing. 

The organs of speech, therefore, should be not only so disci- 
plined as readily and naturally to adapt themselves to the gen- 
eral character of different pieces, but to all the changes, even 
those the most frequent and abrupt, that can be required in 
any continuous reading or speaking. 

For the convenience of marking the expression of pieces 
for the practical application of rules and principles, most of 
the elements explained will now be recapitulated, with a sys- 
tem of notation., in 

A TABULAR VIEW. 



Elements 



Pause. 
Inflection. 
Pitch. 
Voice. 

Stress. 

Quality. 



Varieties or Subdivisions. 



Rhetorical — CEesural — Demicaesural — Final. 

Rising — Falling- — Circumflex — Monotone. 

"Very Low — Low —Middle — Hig-h — Very Hi^h. 

Suppressed — Subdued — Moderate — Energetic — 
Vehement— Sustained. . . . , 

Radical — Vanishing — Median — Compound — 
Thorough — Intermittent. . . . . 

The Pure — The Orotund — The Aspirated — The 
Guttural — The Plaintive. . 

Very Slow — Slow — Moderate — Lively — Brisk- 
Rapid 



Notation. 



(1) ('I) (i) CO 

(') 0) (V A) (-) 

(Ll.) (L.) (M.) (H.) (Hh.) 

(Sp.) (Sb.) (Md.) (En.) (Vh.) (St.) 

(r.) (V.) (m.) (c.) (th.) (tr.) 

(P.) (O.) (A.) (G.) (PI.) 

(Ss.) (S.) (Mm.) (Lv.) (Br.) (R.) 



AM — Axm—Ai — Aix — Ask— End — Err — E^e — IX— Odd — Do- 

Fwll — ?7p — ^le — /ce — Old — Our — Oil — Use. 



Define anger. What is said of the combination of elements ? 
said about the organs of speech ? 



What is 



56 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

OBSERVATIONS. 

The tonic or vowel sounds, as represented in the words at 
the bottom of the Table, should, each, as a review exercise, be 
run through all the varieties of inflection, pitch, force, stress, 
quality, and movement. 

The manner of applying the symbols of notation is shown, 
and, also, an exercise given for modulating the voice, in the 
following 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. Caution, Solemnity, Tranquillity. 

[L. Sp. Hush ! 't is a holy hour ! the quiet room ii 
r. & Seems | like a temple, while yon soft lamp sheds II 

m. S.] A faint and starry radiance through the gloom, ii 

And the sv:!eet stillness, down on bright young Mads., 
With all their clustering locks untouched | by care. 
And bowed \ as fimvers \ are bcrwed with night \ in 
prayer. 

2. Earnest Interrogation. 

[H. Vh. Why stand we here idle ? What is it \ that gen- 
c. O. tlemen wish ? What would they have ? Is life \ so 
Lv.] dear, or peace \ so sweet, as to be purchased \ at the 
pi'ice of chains \ and slavery ? 

3. Amazement and Horror. 

[LI. Sp. Creation sleeps. 'T is as the general pidse il 
m. A. Of life stood | still, and nature made a pause, 
Ss.] An awful \ pause, prophetic \ of her end. 

4. Melancholy, Cheerfulness, Mirth. 

[L. Sb. With eyes \ upraised \ as one | inspired, 

m. P. Pale Melancholy | sat retired ; 

S.J And, from her ivild \ sequestered seat, 

In notes, by distance | made more sweet, 

Poured through the mellow horn \ her pensive soiil. 

[H. En. But, O, how altered, and sprightlier the tone ! 

r. Lv.] When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue. 
Her how \ across her shoulder flung. 
Her huskins \ gemmed with morning dew. 
Blew an inspiring air that dale and thicket rung. 

By what symbols are the different kinds of pauses represented ? By what 
the different kinds of inflections ? By Avhat the kinds of pitch? By what 
the kinds of force ? By what the kinds of stress 7 By what the kinds of 
quality ? By what the kinds of movement 7 



GENERAL REMARKS. 57 

[Br.] Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear ; 

And Sport leapt up, and seized his heechen spear. 

5. Hurry arid Haste. 

[H. Vh. Speed, Malise, SPEED ! — The dun-deer's hide | 

r. A. On jieeter foot \ was never tied ; 

K.] Speed, Malise, SPEED ! such cause \ of haste 
Thine active sinews \ never braced ; 
Bend | gainst the steepy-hill thy breast — 
RuSH I down like torrent | from its crest ! 

6. Pathos, Terror, Aversion. 

[H. Md. The child stretched forth his little hands \ 
m.P.Pl. To grasp the hand \ he gave — 
En. r.] Then William \ shrieked; [LI. Sp. tr. G.] The^aTztZ" 
He I touched \ was [ cold \ and damp \ and dead ! 

7. Lamentation. 

[M. Sb. O, unexpected stroke, worse than of death ! 
V. P. Must I leave thee, happy ivalks and shades, 
PL S.] Fit haunts of gods ? Where I had hoped to spend, 

Quiet though sad, the respite of that day, 

That must be m&rtal to us both. 

8. Shout of Command, Fathos. 

[Hh. St. 6n ! ye brave, 

th. O. Who rush to glory, or | the grave ! 
Br.] Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave ! 

And CHARGE I with all thy cntvALRY ! 
[H. Sb. Ah ! few shall part where many meet ! 
m. P. The snow \ shall be their ivinding sheets 
PI. S.] And every tzirf \ beneath their feet " 
Shall be [ a soldier'' s sepulchre. 

9. Rapturous Emotion. 

[H. En. The world \ recedes, it disappears ! 

r. O. Br.] Heaven \ opens on my eyes ! My ears H 

With sounds seraphic ring ! 
[Hh. Yh.] Lend, lend your ivbigs ! I mount ! I fly ! 
O GRAVE ! where | is thy victory ? 
O Death ! where is thy sting ? 

Explain the application of notation in the illustrations. Repeat all the 
rules for rhetorical and harmonic pauses. The rules for the rising inflec- 
tion. For the falling. For the monotone. For the circumflex. For pitch. 
For force. For stress. For quality. For movement. 



58 ELOCUTIONARY ANALYSIS. 

10. Didactic Thought. 
[M. Md. The moral power is what tyrants have most cause 
m. P. to dread. It addresses itself to the thought and the 
Mm.] judgment of men. No physical force can arrest its 
progress. Its approaches are unseen, but its conse- 
quences are deeply felt. It enters garrisons most 
strongly fortified, and operates in the palaces of 
kings and emperors. We should cherish this 
power, as essential to the preservation of our gov- 
ernment, and as the most efficient means of ame- 
liorating the political condition of our race. And 
this can only be done by a reverence for the laws, 
and by the exercise of an elevated patriotism. 

11. Grave and Serious Description. 
[L. En. The vengeance which the French took of the 
m. O. Swiss, for their determined opposition to the inva- 
S.] sion of their country, was decisive and terrible. 

The soldiers dispersed over the country, carried fire, 
and sword, and robbery, into the most tranquil and 
hidden valleys of Switzerland. From the depths 
of sweet retreats echoed the shrieks of murdered 
men, stabbed in their humble dwellings, under the 
shadow of the high mountains, in the midst of those 
scenes of nature which make solemn and pure the 
secret thought of man, and appal him with the 
majesty of God. The flying peasants saw, in the 
midst of the night, their implements of husbandry, 
and the hopes of the future year, expiring in one 
cruel conflagration. 

12. Bold Declamation. 

[H. Vh. I call upon that right reverend, and this most 

th. O. learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their 

Lv. God, to support the justice of their country. I call 

upon the bishops, to interpose the unsullied sanctity 

of their lawn, — upon the judges, to interpose the 

purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. 

I call upon the honor of your lordships, to reverence 

the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your 

own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my 

country, to vindicate the national character. 

Mark the last three illustrations for emphasis, inflection, and for rhetorical 
pauses. How does emphasis differ from accent 7 Inflection from pitch? 
ritch from force ? Force from stress ? 



PEOSE 

DECLAMATIONS AND RECITATIONS. 



THE SCHOLAR'S RESPONSIBILITY. 

C. B. HADDOCK. 

The scholar is the proper link between the present and the 
past. The past, the mighty past, the parent of the present, 
where is it ? What is it ? It is not the pyramids, in their 
silent loneliness, by the mysterious Nile, which flows and re- 
flows, as it did four thousand years ago, and tells no tale. 
The Parthenon and the Coliseum, the Illyssus and the Tiber, 
are ruins and rivers only, and of themselves reveal no instruct- 
ive or intelligible history. The past has been, and is not. 
All that is left of it is comprised in the mystic words of the 
scholar, which the scholar alone can interpret to his genera- 
tion. But for him, the rich, inspiring, prophetic past had been 
all a world unknown — a limitless, fathomless, impenetrable 
profound. 

Nor is it, after all, the real past, that with the scholar's aid 
is restored and revived. That never comes back again. The 
landscapes of time, as they recede from us, are softened and 
mellowed by the distance. The historic eye creates the 
colors which seem spread over the picture of dead times. 
And hence the universal, incorrigible, strange illusion of a 
golden age in the infancy of the race, of a retrocession from 
perfection, always the more apparent the further it is from 
being real. With his miraculous wand, his talismanic sen- 
tences, whereby he evokes the buried centuries from their 
graves, to pass again before us, in new and more glorious 
forms — in reverend history and youthful poetry, and many- 
voiced art, sculpture, painting, music, and the more familiar 
companionable, heart-moving, heart-moulding romance — with 
this magic, mighty power for good or evil, what does the 
scholar need but a patriot's heart, to do a patriot's work, and 
open to his own dear land the sacred legacies of the deceased 



60 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

The future, too — the brilliant or the frowning future — is a 
province of the scholar's empire. It is no entity ; all, all, a 
creature of the mind. It exists only in the causes which are 
to produce it, and the scholar is the interpreter of these causes. 
He, to some extent, creates the future ; he is himself one of 
the causes from which its events are evolved, one of the ele- 
ments out of which its many colored destiny is woven. He 
not only throws upon the dim-seen future the light of painfully 
gathered experience ; he shapes, by his own creative energy, 
the very future which he foreshadows. 

xA.nd so the whole of life, the past and the future, both 
suspended and counterpoised upon this little pivot of the pres- 
ent, we hold at the will of the scholar. Our philosophy, our 
literature, our schools, all the products of his mind, are all 
instruments of his power. Through them he reaches the 
heart of the people — teaching them what to think and how 
to think — determining, in no small degree, their individual 
habits and their public spirit. It is thus his grateful task, his' 
enviable responsibility, by his own example and through the 
multiplied channels of education, to mature the action and 
regulate the development of the public mind. 



DUTIES AS AMERICANS. 

D. WEBSTER. 

Fellow-citizens, let us not retire from this occasion, with- 
out a deep and solemn conviction of the duties which have 
devolved upon us. This lovely land, this glorious liberty, 
these benign institutions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are 
ours ; ours to enjoy, ours to preserv^e, ours to transmit. Gen- 
erations past, and generations to come, hold us responsible for 
this sacred trust. Our fathers, from behind, admonish us, 
with their anxious paternal voices; posterity calls out to us, 
from the bosom of the future; the world turns hither its 
solicitous eyes — all, all conjure us to act wisely, and faith- 
fully, in the relation which we sustain. We can never, 
indeed, pay the debt which is upon us ; but by virtue, by- 
morality, by religion, by the cuHivation of every good princi- 
ple and every good habit, we may hope to enjoy the blessing 
through our day, and to leave it unimpaired to our children. 
Let us feel deeply how much of what we are and of what we 
possess we owe to this liberty and these institutions of gov- 
ernment. 

Nature has, indeed, given us a soil which yields bounte- 



AND RECITATIONS. 61 

ously to the hands of industry; the mighty and fruitful ocean 
is before us, and the skies over our heads shed health and 
vigor. But what are lands, and seas, and skies, to civilized 
man, without society, without knowledge, without morals, 
without religious culture ? and how can these be enjoyed, in 
all their extent, and all their excellence, but under the protec- 
tion of wise institutions and a free government ? Fellow- 
citizens, there is not one of us, there is not one of us here 
present, who does not, at this moment, and at every moment, 
experience, in his own condition, and in the condition of those 
most near and dear to him, the influence and the benefits of 
this liberty, and these institutions. Let us, then, acknowledge 
the blessing, let us feel it deeply and powerfully, let us cherish 
a strong affection for it, and resolve to maintain and perpetu- 
ate it. The blood of our fathers, — let it not have been shed 
in vain; the great hope of posterity, — let it not be blasted. 

The striking attitude, too, in which we stand to the world 
around us — a topic to which, I fear, I advert too often, and 
dwell on too long — cannot be altogether omitted here. Nei- 
ther individuals nor nations can perform their part well, until 
they understand and feel its importance, and comprehend and 
justly appreciate all the duties belonging to it. It is not to 
inflate national vanity, nor to swell a light and empty feeling 
of self-importance, but it is that we may judge justly of our 
situation, and of our own duties, that I earnestly urge this 
consideration of our position, and our character, among the 
nations of the earth. 

It cannot be denied, but by those who would dispute against 
the sun, that with America, and in America, a new era com- 
mences in human affairs. This era is distinguished by free 
representative governments, by entire religious liberty, by 
improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly awak- 
ened and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a 
diffusion of knowledge through the community such as has 
been before altogether unknown and unheard of. America, 
America, our country, fellow-citizens, our own dear and native 
land, is inseparably connected, fast bound up, in fortune and 
by fate, with these great interests. If they fall, we fall with 
them; if they stand, it will be because we have upholden 
them. Let us contemplate, then, this connection, which binds 
the prosperity of others to our own ; and let us manfully dis- 
charge all the duties which it imposes. If we cherish the 
virtues and the principles of our fathers. Heaven will assist us 
to carry on the work of human liberty and human happiness. 
Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples are before us. 
6 



62 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our path. 
Washington is in the clear upper sky. These other stars 
have now joined the American constellation ; they circle 
round their centre, and the heavens beam with new light. 
Beneath this illumination, let us walk the course of life, and 
at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, the com- 
mon parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity. 



PATRIOTIC SELF-SACRIFICE. 

H. CLAY. 

I ROSE not to say one word which should wound the feel- 
ings of the president. The senator"^ says, that, if placed in 
like circumstances, I would have been the last man to avoid 
putting a direct veto upon the bill, had it met my disapproba- 
tion ; and he does me the honor to attribute to me high 
qualities of stern and unbending intrepidity. I hope, that in 
all that relates to personal firmness, all that concerns a just 
appreciation of the insignificance of human life — whatever 
may be attempted, to threaten or alarm a soul not easily 
swayed by opposition, or awed or intimidated by menace — 
a stout heart and a steady eye, that can survey, unmoved 
and undaunted, any mere personal perils that assail this poor, 
transient, perishing frame, — I may, without disparagement, 
compare with other men. 

But there is a sort of courage, which, I frankly confess it, 
I do not possess ; a boldness to which I dare not aspire ; a 
valor which I cannot covet. I cannot lay myself down in the 
way of the welfare and happiness of my country. That I 
cannot, I have not the courage to do. I cannot interpose the 
power with which I may be invested — a power conferred, 
not for my personal benefit, nor for my aggrandizement, but 
for my country's good — to check her onward march to 
greatness and glory. I have not courage enough, I am too 
cowardly, for that. I would not, I dare not, in the exercise 
of such a trust, lie down, and place my body across the path 
that leads my country to prosperity and happiness. This is 
a sort of courage widely different from that which a man 
may display in his private conduct and private relations. 
Personal or private courage is totally distinct from that 
higher and nobler courage which prompts the patriot to offer 
himself a voluntary sacrifice to his country's good. 

* Mr. Rives, of Virginia. 



AND RECITATIONS. 



63 



Apprehension of the imputation of the want of firmness 
sometimes impels to the performance of rash and inconsid- 
erate acts. It is the greatest courage to be able to bear 
the imputation of the want of courage. But pride, vanity, 
egotism, so unamiable and offensive in private life, are vices 
which partake of the character of crimes in the conduct of 
public affairs. The unfortunate victim of these passions 
cannot see beyond the little, petty, contemptible circle of his 
own personal interests. All his thoughts are withdrawn 
from his country, and concentrated on his consistency, his 
firmness, himself. The high, the exalted, the sublime emo- 
tions of a patriotism, which, soaring toward heaven, rises far 
above all mean, low, or selfish things, and is absorbed by one 
soul-transporting thought of the good and the glory of one's 
country, are never felt in his impenetrable bosom. That 
patriotism which, catching its inspirations from the immortal 
God, and leaving at an immeasurable distance below all 
lesser, grovelling, personal interests and feelings, animates and 
prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of devotion, and of 
death itself — that is public virtue ; that is the noblest, the 
sublimest of all public virtues ! 



ON THE OREGON QUESTION. 

E. HANNE&AN. 

The honorable senator^ has arrayed before us, the mighty 
naval power of England, the number of her ships of war, her 
sailors, and her guns, and the comparatively diminutive force 
we present. If that senator, by this, intended to awe us into 
a compromise, by the surrender of our own territory, it was 
certainly both ill-timed and ill-planned; that would have 
better become a secret session. The idea of surrendering 
without an efibrt, because of the numerical superiority of the 
enemy, whether in guns or men, is new to me in military 
history. I admit that it is right and proper to examine the 
force of Great Britain, but at the same time we ought not to 
forget or undervalue our own. The American people cannot 
be alarmed ; they are not to be awed by any such representa- 
tions. 

But the senator of South Carolina! is wedded to a different 
plan — a plan which avoids all action. He is for leaving the 
whole matter to the silent, quiet, noiseless operation of time, 

* Mr. Clayton, of Delaware. t Mr. Calhoun. 



64 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

and the gradual encroachments of our hardy and enterprising 
settlers, who have gone, and are going, into the territor}'-. 

But do gentlemen flatter themselves that we can thus take 
Oregon, and England know nothing of it ? Will the English 
not understand this policy as well as we ? And when they 
perceive the plan likely to take effect, will they not be on 
their guard? If we press our population upon them, will 
they not, in turn, press their pauper population upon us ? 
Which of the two plans will most consult the honor of this 
country? Which story shall we rather have on record as 
a heritage to our posterity — the plan of the honorable sena- 
tor, to get the territory by silent encroachment, or that advo- 
cated by gentlemen on the other side, who are for demanding 
the territory, because it is ours ? Shall we take it openly 
and boldly, by a straight-forward, manly course ? — or shall 
we get it covertly, slily, stealthily ? No ! I will not say steal- 
thily; I will not employ any term that may imply the 
slightest disrespect to the honorable senator ; I will not say 
stealthily, but I will say circuitously ; yes, that is the word, 
— circuitously. I would not say anything that could be a 
cause of offence to the honorable gentleman from South Caro- 
lina. I have no such feelings toward him. I hold that 
honorable senator in too much respect; I have too much 
esteem and regard for him. I would not, for the world, pluck 
one leaf from the laurel that enwreaths his venerated brow. 
He has ably served his country in many and various import- 
ant stations. I hope and trust he will do nothing tbat shall 
mar the page in this nation's history which he is destined to 
fill. I respect his acquisitions ; above all, I venerate his 
virtues — the spotless purity of his private life. But the 
senator's course is circuitous ; ours is direct. Which, I ask, 
will do most honor to a country like this ? Which will read 
the best ? Sir, how will it read along side of the history of 
'76 ? Then the whole population of a range of Atlantic colo- 
nies, sooner than submit to the exactions of a slight tax, took 
up arms, and went into the appeal of battle. They stood for 
their rights in many a bloody field; and they conquered those 
rights from the mightiest and the haughtiest power the world 
ever saw. Such was the first chapter of our history, read 
and studied by the nations of the Old World. But what is 
to be the second chapter ? At first we had but three millions 
of people ; now Ave have twenty millions. Our wealth, our 
power, our energy, have increased in more than a like pro- 
portion. And now the same old enemy claims a great empire 
on our western coast ; and the descendants of the same people 



AND RECITATIONS. 66 

resolve, sooner than resist, to surrender their rights, and let 
her take it. I trust no such chapter is to be written in our 
history. 

Mr. President, I have but uttered the rights of my country ; 
and by their side I plant myself, ready to abide the issue — 
come peace, come war. 



ENMITY TOWARDS GREAT BRITAIN. 

R. CHOATE. 

Mr. President, we must distinguish a little. That there 
exists in this country an intense sentiment of nationality ; a 
cherished energetic feeling and consciousness of our indepen- 
dent and separate national existence ; a feeling that we have 
a transcendent destiny to fulfil, which we mean to fulfil ; a 
great work to do, which we know how to do, and are able to 
do ; a career to run, up which we hope to ascend, till we 
stand on the steadfast and glittering summits of the world ; 
a feeling, that^we are surrounded and attended by a noble 
historical group of competitors and rivals, the other nations 
of the earth, all of whom we hope to overtake, and even to 
distance; — such a sentiment as this exists, perhaps, in the 
character of this people. And this I do not discourage ; I do 
not condemn. It is easy to ridicule it. But " grand, swell- 
ing sentiments" of patriotism, no wise man wiU despise. 
They have their uses. They help to give a great heart to 
a nation ; to animate it for the various conflicts of its lot ; to 
assist it to work out for itself a more exceeding weight, and 
to fill a larger measure of glory. But, sir, that among these 
useful and beautiful sentiments, predominant among them, 
there exists a temper of hostility towards this one particular 
nation, to such a degree as to amount to a habit, a trait, a 
national passion — to amount to a state of feeling which " is 
to be regretted," and which really threatens another war — 
this I earnestly and confidently deny. I would not hear your 
enemy say this. 

Sir, the indulgence of such a sentiment by the people 
supposes them to have forgotten one of the counsels of Wash- 
ington. Call to mind the ever seasonable wisdom of the 
Farewell Address : " The nation which indulges towards 
another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is, in 
some degree, a slave. It is a slave to its animosity, or to its 
affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from 
its duty and its interest." 
6# 



bb PROSE DECLAMATIONS. 

No, sir ! no, sir ! We are above all this. Let the High- 
land clansman, half naked, half civilized, half blinded by the 
peat-smoke of his cavern, have his hereditary enemy and his 
hereditary enmity, and keep the keen, deep, and precious 
hatred, set on fire of hell, alive if he can ; let the North 
American Indian have his, and hand it down from father to 
son, by Heaven knows what symbols of alligators, and rattle- 
snakes, and war-clubs, smeared with vermilion and entwined 
with scarlet ; let such a country as Poland, — cloven to the 
earth, the armed heel on the radiant forehead, her body dead, 
her soul incapable to die, — let her remember the " wrongs of 
days long past;" let the lost and wandering tribes of Israel 
remember theirs — the manliness and the sympathy of the 
world may allow or pardon this to them ; — but shall Amer- 
ica, young, free, prosperous, just setting out on the highway 
of heaven, " decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she 
just begins to move in, glittering like the morning star, fall 
of life and joy," shall she be supposed to be polluting and 
corroding her noble and happy heart, by moping over old 
stories of stamp act, and tea tax, and the firing of the Leopard 
upon the Chesapeake in a time of peace ? No, sir ! no, sir ! 
a thousand times no ! Why, I protest I thought all that had 
been settled. I thought two wars had settled it all. What 
else was so much good blood shed for, on so many more than 
classical fields of revolutionary glory ? For what was so much 
good blood more lately shed, at Lundy's Lane, at Fort Erie, 
before and behind the lines at New Orleans, on the deck of 
the Constitution, on the deck of the Java, on the lakes, on 
the sea, but to settle exactly these "wrongs of past days?" 
And have we come back sulky and sullen from the very field 
of honor ? For my country, I deny it. The senator"^ says, 
that our people still remember these " former scenes of wrong, 
with, perhaps, too deep " a sensibility ; and that, as I inter- 
pret him, they nourish a " too extensive " national enmity. 
How so ? If the feeling he attributes to them is moral, 
manly, creditable, how comes it to be too deep? and if it is 
immoral, unmanly, and unworthy, why is it charged on them 
at all ? Is there a member of this body, who would stand up 
in any educated, in any intelligent and right-minded circle 
which he respected, and avow that, for his part, he must 
acknowledge, that, looking back through the glories and the 
atonement of two wars, his views were full of ill blood to 
England ; that in peace he could not help being her enemy ; 

* ]Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania. 



AND RECITATIONS. 67 

that he could not pluck out the deep-wrought convictions and 
" the immortal hate " of the old times ? Certainly, not one. 
And then, sir, that which we feel would do no honor to our- 
selves, shall we confess for our country ? 

Mr. President, let me say, that in my judgment this notion 
of a national enmity of feeling towards Great Britain belongs 
to a past age of our history. My younger countrymen are 
unconscious of it. They disavow it. That generation, in 
whose opinions and feelings the actions and the destiny of 
the next are unfolded, as the tree in the germ, do not at all 
comprehend your meaning, nor your fears, nor your regrets. 
We are born to happier feelings. We look to England as 
we look to France. We look to them, from our new world, 
— not unrenowned, yet a new world still, — and the blood 
mounts to our cheeks ; our eyes swim ; our voices are stifled 
with emulousness of so much glory ; their trophies will not 
let us sleep : but there is no hatred at all ; no hatred — no 
barbarian memory of wrongs, for which brave men have made 
the last expiation to the brave. 



DEATH OF JOHN Q. ADAMS. 

I. E. HOLMES. 

Mr. Speaker : The mingled tones of sorrow, like the voice 
of many waters, have come unto us from a sister state — Mas- 
sachusetts, weeping for her honored son. The state I have 
the honor in part to represent once endured, with yours, a 
common suffering, battled for a common cause, and rejoiced 
in a common triumph. Surely, then, it is meet, that in this 
the day of your affliction, we should mingle our griefs. 

When a great man falls, the nation mourns ; when a patri- 
arch is removed, the people weep. Ours, my associates, is no 
common bereavement. The chain which linked our hearts 
with the gifted spirits of former times has been suddenly 
snapped. The lips from which flowed those living and glori- 
ous truths that our fathers uttered are closed in death. Yes, 
my friends, Death has been among us ! He has not entered 
the humble cottage of some unknown, ignoble peasant; he 
has knocked audibly at the palace of a nation ! His footstep 
has been heard in the hafls of state ! He has cloven down 
his victim in the midst of the councils of a people. He has 
borne in triumph from among you the gravest, wisest, most 
reverend head. Ah ! he has taken him as a trophy who was 



-68 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

once chief over many statesmen, adorned with virtue, and 
learning, and truth; he has borne at his chariot wheels a 
renowned one of the earth. 

How often we have crowded into that aisle, and clustered 
around that now vacant desk, to listen to the counsels of wis- 
dom as they fell from the lips of the venerable Sage, we can 
all remember, for it was but of yesterday.- But what a change ! 
How wondrous! how sudden! 'Tis like a vision of the 
night. That form which we beheld but a few days since is 
now cold in death ! 

But the last Sabbath, and in this hall he worshipped with 
others. Now his spirit mingles with the noble army of mar- 
tyrs and the just made perfect, in the eternal adoration of the 
living God. With him, "this is the end of earth." He 
sleeps the sleep that knows no waking. He is gone — and 
forever ! The sun that ushers in the morn of that next holy 
day, while it gilds the lofty dome of the capitol, shall rest with 
soft and mellow light upon the consecrated spot beneath 
whose turf forever lies the Patriot Father and the Patriot 
Sage. 



REMEMBRANCE OF THE GOOD. 

H. HUMPHKEY. 

Why is it that the names of Howard, and Thornton, and 
Clarkson, and Wilberforce, will be held in everlasting remem- 
brance ? Is it not chiefly on account of their goodness, their 
Christian philanthropy, the overflowing and inexhaustible 
benevolence of their great minds ? Such men feel that they 
were not born for themselves, nor for the narrow circle of 
their kindred and acquaintances, but for the world and for 
posterity. They delight in doing good on a great scale. 
Their talents, their property, their time, their knowledge and 
experience and influence, they hold in constant requisition for 
the benefit of the poor, the oppressed, and the perishing. 
Yon may trace them along the whole pathway of life, by the 
blessings which they scatter far and wide. They may be 
likened to yon noble river, which carries gladness and fertility, 
from state to state, through all the length of that rejoicing 
valley, which it was made to bless; — or to those summer 
showers which pour gladness and plenty over all the regions 
that they visit, till they melt away into the glorious eflfulgence 
of the setting sun. 

Such a man was Howard, the prisoner's friend. Christian 
philanthropy was the element in which he lived and moved, 



AND RECITATIONS. by 

and out of which life would have been intolerable. It was to 
him that kings listened with astonishment, as if doubtful from 
what world of pure, disinterestedness he had come. To him 
despair opened her dungeons, and plague and pestilence could 
summon no terrors to arrest his investigations. In his pres- 
ence, crime, though girt with the iron panoply of desperation, 
stood amazed and rebuked. With him home was nothing, 
country was nothing, health was nothing, life was nothing. 
His first and last question was, " What is the utmost that I 
can do for degraded, depraved, bleeding humanity, in all her 
prison houses ? " And what wonders did he accomplish ! 
What astonishing changes in the whole system of prison dis- 
cipline may be traced back to his disclosures and suggestions, 
and how many millions, yet to be born, will rise up and call 
him blessed ! Away, all ye Caesars and Napoleons, to your own 
dark and frightful domains of slaughter and misery ! Ye can 
no more endure the light of such a godlike presence than the 
eye, already inflamed to torture by dissipation, can look the 
sun in the face at noonday. 



NATIONAL MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. 

R. C. WINTHROP. 

Fellow-citizens, let us seize this occasion to renew to each 
other our vows of allegiance and devotion to the American 
Union, and let us recognize in our common title to the name 
and the fame of Washington, and in our common veneration 
for his example and his advice, the all-sufficient centripetal 
power, which shall hold the thick clustering stars of our con- 
federacy in one glorious constellation forever ! Let the col- 
umn which we are about to construct be at once a pledge and 
an emblem of perpetual union ! Let the foundations be laid, 
let the superstructure be built up and cemented, let each stone 
be raised and riveted, in a spirit of national brotherhood! 
And may the earliest ray of the rising sun — till that sun 
shall set to rise no more — draw forth from it daily, as from 
the fabled statue of antiquity, a strain of national harmony, 
which shall strike a responsive cord in every heart throughout 
the republic ! 

Proceed, then, fellow-citizens with the work for which you 
have assembled. Lay the corner-stone of a monument which 
shall adequately bespeak the gratitude of the whole American 
people to the illustrious father of his country ! Build it to 
the skies ; you cannot outreach the loftiness of his principles ! 



70 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

Found it upon the massive and eternal rock ; you cannot 
make it more enduring than his fame ! Construct it of the 
peerless Parian marble ; you cannot make it purer than his 
life ! Exhaust upon it the rules and principles of ancient and 
of modern art ; you cannot make it more proportionate than 
his character. 

But let not your homage to his memory end here. Think 
not to transfer to a tablet or a column the tribute which is due 
from yourselves. Just honor to Washington can only be ren- 
dered by observing his precepts and imitating his example. 
Similitudine decoremus. He has built his own monument. 
We, and those who come after us, in successive generations, 
are its appointed, its privileged guardians. The wide-spread 
republic is the future monument to Washington. Maintain 
its independence. Uphold its constitution. Preserve its 
union. Defend its liberty. Let it stand before the world in 
all its original strength and beauty, securing peace, order, 
equality and freedom, to all within its boundaries, and shed- 
ding light and hope and joy upon the pathway of human lib- 
erty throughout the world, — and Washington needs no other 
monument. Other structures may fully testify our veneration 
for him ; this, this alone can adequately illustrate his services 
to mankind. 

Nor does he need even this. The republic may perish ; 
the wide arch of our ranged union may fall ; star by star its 
glories may expire ; stone by stone its columns and its capitol 
may moulder and crumble ; all other names which adorn its 
annals may be forgotten ; but as long as human hearts shall 
anywhere pant, or human tongues shall anywhere plead, for 
a true, rational, constitutional liberty, those hearts shall en- 
shrine the memory, and those tongues prolong the fame, of 
George Washington. 



ON DECLARING THE REPUBLIC. 

A. DE LAMARTINE. 

Gentlemen — In beholding one of the most affecting sights 
which the annals of human life are capable of presenting — 
that of an august princess defending herself with her innocent 
child, and coming from the midst of a deserted palace to 
throw herself into the midst of the representatives of the peo- 
ple — at such a spectacle, I share with all of you, and feel as • 
profoundly as any of you, the two-fold sensations which have 
but just now agitated this assembly. I beg permission to 



AND RECITATIONS. 71 

repeat my words, and entreat you to wait to hear what will 
follow them. I said, gentlemen, that I feel as deeply as any 
man in this assemblage the two-fold sensations which have 
just now agitated all of us. I say this without making any 
distinctions. This is a moment which will not admit of 
them. It is a moment of equality ; and this equality, I doubt 
not, will serve to show that those men who may hereafter be 
selected by their country to give peace, harmony and concord, 
to the nation, will only receive a sacred mission for the peace 
and happiness of their country — not for their own emolument 
and aggrandizement. But, gentlemen, if I have experienced 
so much emotion, which such an affecting spectacle naturally 
inspires — a spectacle of the greatest of human catastrophes 

— if I have shared, in common with you all, in the feelings 
which have animated you all, whatever in other respects your 
opinions may be, much less have I been wanting in deeply 
partaking and vividly feeling a sensation of the deepest and 
profoundest respect for that glorious people, who have now for 
two days been fighting to overthrow a treacherous and deceit- 
ful government, and to reestablish, upon a foundation hence- 
forth not to be shaken, the reign of order and the empire of 
Hberty. 

But, gentlemen, I do not fall into the delusion made a little 
while ago in this place. I do not conceive that a sudden 
exclamation, the effect of a momentary emotion, can bestow 
any solid right to the possession of the government over 
thirty-five millions of men ! What one plaudit may proclaim, 
a succeeding acclamation may overthrow. Whatever form 
of government it may please the wisdom and interest of the 
country to erect, it is the interest of all persons, that a popular, 
solid and firm government should be established. Well, then, 
gentlemen, how are we to do this ? How are we to find this 
unshakable foundation ? From the great mass of the people 

— from them let it be, as it were, expressed in a convention 
of the people. This will be better than having recourse to 
tricks, to subterfuges, to intrigues, to sudden surprises and 
sudden emotions, of which the people sooner or later will have 
cause bitterly to repent. 

I come forward, therefore, to support with all my powers 
the two-fold demand ; first of a government provisional, and of 
necessity, I admit, but a government of order, a government 
which may staunch the blood which is now flowing, and stop 
the civil war which is raging between fellow-citizens. I de- 
mand, therefore, that instantly, by the rights of public peace, 
by the rights of the blood which is flowing, by the rights of a 



72 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

glorious people, exhausted with the heroic toil of the three 
past days — I demand the immediate establishment of a pro- 
visional government — a government to be set aside by the 
definitive government which the people may be pleased to 
organize when consulted in convention — a provisional govern- 
ment, whose first mission will be, in my opinion, to establish 
peace between citizens ; the second, to prepare immediately 
to consult the whole nation — to consult the whole National 
Guard of the whole people — I mean the entire people — all 
who, by the title of a man, have rights as men. 



SUFFERINGS AND DESTINY OF THE PILGRIMS. 

E. EVERETT. 

Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous 
vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the 
prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown 
sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the 
uncertain, the tedious voyage. ^ Suns rise and set, and weeks 
and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but 
brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see 
them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost 
to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, 
pursuing a circuitous route ; and now driven in fury before 
the raging tempest, on the high and giddy wave. The awful 
voice of the storm howls through the rigging; the laboring 
masts seem straining from their base ; the dismal sound of 
the pumps is heard ; the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from 
billow to billow ; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing 
floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, 
shivering weight, against the staggered vessel. I see them, 
escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate 
undertaking, and landed, at last, after a few months' passage, 
on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, — weak and weary from 
the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, without shelter, 
without means, surrounded by hostile tribes. 

Shut, now, the volume of history, and tell me, on any 
principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this 
handful of adventurers ? Tell me, man of military science, 
in how many months were they all swept off" by the thirty 
savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of New 
England ? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of 
a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not 



AND RECITATIONS. 73 

smiled, languish on the distant coast ? Student of history, 
compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, 
the abandoned adventures, of other times, and find the parallel 
of this ! Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the house- 
less heads of women and children ? was it hard labor and 
spare meals ? was it disease ? was it the tomahawk ? was 
it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, 
and a broken heart, aching, in its last moments, at the 
recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea ? — was it 
some, or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken com- 
pany to their melancholy fate ? And is it possible that 
neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to 
blast this bud of hope ! Is it possible that from a beginning 
so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of 
pit}^ there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so 
wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a 
promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious ! 



GLORIOUS NEW ENGLAND. 

S, S. PRENTISS. 

Glorious New England ! thou art still true to thy ancient 
fame, and worthy of thy ancestral honors. We, thy children, 
have assembled in this far distant land to celebrate thy birth- 
day. A thousand fond associations throng upon us, roused 
by the spirit of the hour. On thy pleasant valleys rest, like 
sweet dews of morning,.the gentle recollections of our early 
life ; around thy hills and mountains cling, like gathering 
mists, the mighty memories of the Revolution ; and far away 
in the horizon of thy past gleam, like thy own bright north- 
ern lights, the awful virtues of our pilgrim sires ! But while 
we devote this day to the remembrance of our native land, 
we forget not that in which our happy lot is cast. We exult 
in the reflection, that though we count by thousands the miles 
which separate us from our birth-place, still our country is the 
same. We are no exiles meeting upon the banks of a foreign 
river, to swell its waters with our home-sick tears. Here 
floats the same banner which rustled above our boyish heads, 
except that its mighty folds are wider, and its glittering stars 
increased in number. 

The sons of New England are found in every state of the 
broad republic ! In the East, the South, and the unbounded 
West, their blood mingles freely with every kindred current. 
7 



74 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

We have but changed our chamber in the paternal mansion ; 
in all its rooms we are at home, and all who inhabit it are 
our brothers. To us the Union has but one domestic hearth ; 
its household gods are all the same. Upon us, then, pecu- 
liarly devolves the duty of feeding the fires upon that kindly 
hearth ; of guarding with pious care those sacred household 
gods. 

We cannot do with less than the whole Union ; to us it 
admits of no division. In the veins of our children flows 
Northern and Southern blood ; how shall it be separated ? — 
who shall put asunder the best affections of the heart, the 
noblest instincts of our nature ? We love the land of our 
adoption ; so do we that of our birth. Let us ever be true to 
both ; and always exert ourselves in maintaining the unity of 
our country, the integrity of the republic. 

Accursed, then, be the hand put forth to loosen the golden 
cord of union ! thrice accursed the traitorous lips which shall 
propose its severance ! 

But no ! the Union cannot be dissolved ; its fortunes are 
too brilliant to be marred; its destinies too powerful to be 
resisted. Here will be their greatest triumph, their most 
mighty development. 

And when, a century hence, this Crescent City^ shall have 
filled her golden horns ; — when within her broad-armed port 
shall be gathered the products of the industry of a hundred 
millions of freemen ; — when galleries of art and halls of 
learning shall have made classic this mart of trade ; — then 
may the sons of the Pilgrims, still wandering from the bleak 
hills of the north, stand up on the banks of the Great River, 
and exclaim, with mingled pride and wonder, — Lo ! this is 
our country ; — when did the world ever behold so rich and 
magnificent a city — so great and glorious a republic ! 



PERPETUITY OF OUR LIBERTIES. 

L. BEECHER. 

I AM aware that our ablest patriots are looking out on the 
deep, vexed with storms, with great forebodings and failings 
of heart, for fear of the things that are coming upon us ; and 
I perceive a spirit of impatience rising, and distrust, in respect 
to the perpetuity of our republic ; and I am sure that these 
fears are well founded, and am glad that they exist. It is the 

* New Orleans. 



AND RECITATIONS. 75 

star of hope in our dark horizon. Fear is what we need, as 
the ship needs wind on a rocking sea, after a storm, to prevent 
foundering. But when our fear and our efforts shall corres- 
pond with our danger, the danger is past. For it is not the 
impossibility of self-preservation that threatens us ; nor is it 
the unwillingness of the nation to pay the price of the preser- 
vation, as she has paid the price of the purchase, of our liber- 
ties. It is inattention and inconsideration, protracted till the 
crisis is past, and the things which belong to our peace are 
hid from our eyes. And blessed be God, that the tokens of 
a national waking up, the harbinger of God's mercy, are mul- 
tiplying upon us ! 

There is at the West an enthusiastic feeling on the subject 
of education, and nothing has so inspired us with hope, as to 
witness the susceptibleness of the East on the same subject, 
and the national fraternal benevolence with which you are 
ready to put forth a helping hand. We have been sad, but 
now we are joyful. We see, we feel, that East and West, 
and North and South, are waking up on this subject; a 
redeeming spirit is rising which will save the nation. We 
did not, in the darkest hour, believe that God had brought 
our fathers to this goodly land to lay the foundation of reli- 
gious liberty, and wrought such wonders in their preservation, 
and raised their descendants to such heights of civil and reli- 
gious prosperity, only to reverse the analogy of his providence, 
and abandon his work ; and though now there be clouds, and 
the sea roaring, and men's hearts failing, we believe there is 
light behind the cloud, and that the imminence of our danger 
is intended, under the guidance of Heaven, to call forth and 
apply a holy, fraternal fellowship between the East and West, 
which shall secure our preservation, and make the prosperity 
of our nation durable as time, and as abundant as the waves 
of the sea. 

I would add, as a motive to immediate action, that if we do 
fail in our great experiment of self-government, our destruc- 
tion will be as signal as the birth-right abandoned, the mercies 
abused, and the provocation offered to beneficent Heaven. 
The descent of desolation will correspond with the past eleva- 
tion. No punishments of Heaven are so severe as those for 
mercies abused; and no instrumentality employed in their 
infliction is so dreadful as the wrath of man. No spasms are 
like the spasms of expiring liberty, and no wailings such as 
her convulsions extort. It took Rome three hundred years to 
die ; and our death, if we perish, will be as much more terrific 
as our intelligence and free institutions have given to us more 



76 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

bone, and sinew, and vitality. May God hide me from the 
day, when the dying agonies of my country shall begin ! 
O, thou beloved land, bound together by the ties of brother- 
hood and common interest and perils, live forever, — one and 
undivided ! 



ANCIENT AND MODERN PRODUCTIONS. 

C. SUMNER. 

The classics possess a peculiar charm, from the circum- 
stance that they have been the models, I might almost say 
the masters, of composition and thought in all ages. In the 
contemplation of these august teachers of mankind, we are 
filled with conflicting emotions. They are the early voice of 
the world, better remembered and more cherished still, than 
all the intermediate words that have been uttered, — as the 
lessons of childhood still haunt us when the impressions of 
later years have been effaced from the mind. But they show 
with most unwelcome frequency the tokens of the world's 
childhood, before passion had yielded to the sway of reason 
and the affections. They want the highest charm of purity, 
of righteousness, of elevated sentiments, of love to God and 
man. It is not in the frigid philosophy of the Porch and the 
Academy that we are to seek these ; not in the marvellous 
teachings of Socrates, as they come mended by the mellifluous 
words of Plato ; not in the resounding line of Homer, on 
whose inspiring tale of blood Alexander pillowed his head ; 
not in the animated strain of Pindar, where virtue is pictured 
in the successful strife of an athlete at the Isthmian games ; 
not in the torrent of Demosthenes, dark with self-love and 
the spirit of vengeance ; not in the fitful philosophy and 
intemperate eloquence of Tully ; not in the genial libertinism 
of Horace, or the stately atheism of Lucretius. No ; these 
must not be our masters ; in none of these are we to seek the 
way of life. For eighteen hundred years the spirit of these 
writers has been engaged in weaponless contest with the 
Sermon on the Mount, and those two sublime commandments 
on which hang all the law and the prophets. The strife is 
still pending. Heathenism, which has possessed itself of 
such siren forms, is not yet exorcised. It still tempts the 
young, controls the affairs of active life, and haunts the 
meditations of age. 

Our own productions, though they may yield to those of 
the ancients in the arrangement of ideas, in method, in 



AND RECITATIONS. 77 

beauty of form, and in freshness of illustration, are immeas- 
urably superior in the truth, delicacy, and elevation of their 
sentiments — above all, in the benign recognition of that great 
Christian revelation, the brotherhood of man. How vain are 
eloquence and poetry, compared with this heaven-descended 
truth ! Put in one scale that simple utterance, and in the 
other the lore of antiquity, with its accumulating glosses and 
commentaries, and the last will be light and trivial in the 
balance. Greek poetry has been likened to the song of the 
nightingale as she sits in the rich, symmetrical crown of the 
palm-tree, trilling her thick-warbled notes ; but even this is 
less sweet and tender than the music of the human heart. 



THE ANCIENT AND MODERN WORLD. 

J. MARTINEAU. 

The difference between the ancient and modern world is 
this : that in the one the great reality of being was noiv ; in 
the other, it is yet to come. If you would witness a scene 
characteristic of the popular life of old, you must go to the 
amphitheatre of Rome, mingle with its eighty thousand spec- 
tators, and watch the eager faces of senators and people ; 
observe how the masters of the world spend the wealth of 
conquest, and indulge the pride of power; see every wild 
creature that God has made to dwell, from the jungles of 
India to the mountains of Wales, from the forests of Ger- 
many to the deserts of Nubia, brought hither to be hunted 
down in artificial groves by thousands in an hour ; behold the 
captives of war, noble perhaps and wise in their own land, 
turned loose amid yells of insult, more terrible for their for- 
eign tongue, to contend with brutal gladiators trained to make 
death the favorite amusement, and present the most solemn 
of individual realities as a wholesale public sport ; mark the 
light look with which the multitude, by uplifted finger, 
demands that the wounded combatant be slain before their 
eyes ; notice the troop of Christian martyrs awaiting, hand 
in hand, the leap from the tiger's den; and when the day's 
spectacle is over, and the blood of two thousand victims stains 
the ring, follow the giddy crowd as it streams from the vomit- 
aries into the streets ; trace its lazy course into the forum, 
and hear it there scrambling for the bread of private indolence 
doled out by the purse of public corruption ; and see how it 
suns itself to sleep in the open ways, or crawls into foul dens, 
7# 



18 



PROSE DECLAMATIONS 



till morning brings the hope of games and merry blood 
again; — and you have an idea of the imperial people, and 
their passionate living for the moment, which the gospel 
found in occupation of the world. 

And if you would fix in your thought an image of the 
popular mind of Christendom, I know not that you could do 
better than go at sunrise with the throng of toiling men to 
the hill-side where some Whitfield or Wesley is about to 
preach. Hear what a great heart of reality in that hymn 
that swells upon the morning air, — a prophet's strain upon a 
people's lips ! See the rugged hands of labor, clasped and 
trembling, wrestling with the Unseen in prayer ! Observe 
the uplifted faces, deep-lined with hardship and with guilt, 
streaming now with honest tears, and flushed with earnest 
shame, as the man of God awakes the life within, and tells 
of him that bore for us the stripe and the cross, and offers the 
hoMest spirit to the humblest lot, and tears away the veil of 
sense from the gates of the future state. Go to these people's 
homes, and observe the decent tastes, the sense of domestic 
obligations, the care for childhood, the desire of instruction, 
the neighborly kindness, the conscientious self-respect ; and 
say, whether the sacred image of duty does not live within 
those minds ; whether holiness has not taken the place of 
pleasure in their idea of life ; whether for them, too, the toils 
of nature are not lightened by some eternal hope, and their 
burden carried by some angel of love, and the strife of neces- 
sity turned into the service of God. The present tyrannizes 
over their character no more, subdued by a future infinitely 
great ; and hardly though they lie upon the rock of this 
world, they can live the life of faith ; and while the hand 
plies the tools, earth keep a spirit open to the skies. 



UPON THE EMPLOYMENT OF INDIANS IN THE 
AMERICAN WAR. 

W. PITT. 

My Lords, — who is the man that, in addition to the dis- 
graces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and 
associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the 
savage? — to call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman 
inhabitant of the woods ? — to delegate to the merciless Indian 
the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of 
his barbarous war against our brethren ? My lords, these 
enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my 



AND RECITATIONS. 79 

lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on 
the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of 
morality ; " for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, 
" to use all the means which God and nature have put into our 
hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such princi- 
ples confessed ; to hear them avowed in this house, or in this 
country ! 

My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much on your 
attention; but I cannot repress my indignation; — I feel 
myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon as 
members of this house, as men, as Christians, to protest 
against such horrible barbarity ! — That God and nature 
have put into our hands ! What ideas of God and nature 
that noble lord may entertain, I know not ; but I know that 
such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and 
humanity. What ! to attribute the sacred sanction of God 
and nature, to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife ^ to 
the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drink- 
ing the blood, of his mangled victims ! Such notions shock 
every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every 
sentiment of honor ! These abominable principles, and this 
more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive 
indignation ! 

I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned bench, 
to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of 
their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsul- 
lied sanctity of their lawn, — upon the judges, to interpose the 
purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call 
upon the honor of your lordships, to reverence the dignity of 
your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the 
spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national 
character. I invoke the genius of the constitution. 

I solemnly call upon your lordships, and upon every order 
of men in the state, to stamp upon this infamous procedure 
the indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. More particu- 
larly, I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to do away 
this iniquity ; let them perform a lustration, to purify the 
country from this deep and deadly sin ! 



ON REFORM IN PARLIAMENT. 

H. BROUGHAM. 

My Lords, — I have yet to learn that a measure recom- 
mended upon principle, consistent in its form, and certainly 
proceeding upon an anxious wish to restore, and not to de- 



80 



PROSE DECLAMATIONS 



stroy — to improve, and not to impair — is to be at once cried 
down and abandoned, because it happens to enjoy the addi- 
tional quality — I will not call it a recommendation — that it 
is honestly and sincerely greeted with approbation by a large 
body of his majesty's subjects. But if it is said that I am 
talking of the people, and not of a few agitators, then I say I 
am also yet to learn that a measure recommended by its own 
merits, good in principle, and having the additional accident 

— I will not call it a recommendation, though I think it to be 
one — of being universally and in an unprecedented degree, 
the favorite of the people of England, is at once to be set 
aside, and at once to be condemned and rejected, because it 
possesses the aditional accident — again I will not call it a 
recommendation, but an accident — of pacifying even that 
portion of our fellow-subjects, which, as has been mentioned 
in this house, no exertion of human power can satisfy. Still, 
my lords, I do not call upon you to adopt this measure be- 
cause it happens to be consistent with popular feelings ; I do 
not call upon you to adopt it upon that account ; but I am 
persuaded, that if this measure be rejected, you will bring the 
security of the country, the peace of his majesty, the stability 
of our ancient constitution, and the whole frame of society, 
from Cornwall to Sutherland, — Ireland as well as England, 

— into a state of jeopardy, which I earnestly pray to Heaven 
may never come to pass. 

My lords, I do not wish to use the language of threats ; but 
I recollect, and history has recorded the fact, that when the 
great Earl of Chatham was addressing our most severe ances- 
tors within these walls, when he was shaking them with his 
magnificent oratory, he suffered the lightning of his eloquence 
to smite the enemies of reform by menacing them with the 
dangers that must attend an attempt to withhold from the 
people their just rights ; and I well remember that that was 
deemed no insult by those who heard him, but was considered 
honorable, highly honorable, to him who had the boldness to 
utter that denunciation. For my own part, all that I will 
venture to do, in this latter day of eloquence and of talent, 
standing in the honorable situation which I do in this house 
and in the country, is to call upon your lordships to reflect, 
and believe that the thunders of heaven are sometimes heard 
to roll in the voice of a united people ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 81 

INFIDELITY TESTED. 

R. HALL. 

We might ask the patrons of infidelity, what fury impels 
them to attempt the subversion of Christianity? Is it that 
they have discovered a better system ? To what virtues are 
their principles favorable ? Or is there one which Christians 
have not carried to a higher than any of which their party 
can boast ? Have they discovered a more excellent rule of 
life, or a better hope in death, than that which the Scriptures 
suggest ? Above all, what are the pretensions on which they 
rest their claims to be the guides of mankind, or which em- 
boldened them to expect we should trample on the experience 
of ages, and abandon a religion which has been attested by a 
train of miracles and prophecies, in which millions of our 
forefathers have found a refuge in every trouble, and consola- 
tion in the hour of death ; a religion which has been adorned 
with the highest sanctity of character and splendor of talents ; 
which enrols amongst its disciples the names of Bacon, New- 
ton and Locke, the glory of their species, and to which these 
illustrious men were proud to dedicate the last and best fruits 
of their immortal genius ? 

If the question at issue is to be decided by argument, noth- 
ing can be added to the triumph of Christianity ; if by an ap- 
peal to authority, what have our adversaries to oppose to these 
great names ? Where are the infidels of such pure, uncon- 
taminated morals, unshaken probity, and extended benevo- 
lence, that we should be in no danger of being seduced into 
impiety by their example ? Into what obscure recesses of 
misery, into what dungeons, have their philanthropists pene- 
trated, to lighten the fetters and relieve the sorrows of the 
helpless captive ? What barbarous tribes have their apostles 
visited ? What distant climes have they explored, encom- 
passed with cold, nakedness, and want, to diffuse principles 
of virtue and the blessings of civilization? Or will they 
choose to waive their pretensions to this extraordinary, and 
in their eyes eccentric, species of benevolence, and rest their 
character on their political exploits ; on their efforts to reani- 
mate the virtues of a sinking state, to restrain licentiousness, 
to calm the tumult of popular fury ; and, by inculcating the 
spirit of justice, moderation and pity for fallen greatness, to 
mitigate the inevitable horrors of revolution ? Our adversa- 
ries will, at least, have the discretion, if not the modesty, to 
recede from this test. 

More than all, their infatuated eagerness, their parricidal 



82 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

zeal, to extinguish a sense of Deity, must excite astonish- 
ment and horror. Is the idea of an almighty and perfect 
ruler unfriendly to any passion which is consistent with inno- 
cence, or an obstruction to any design which it is not shame- 
ful to avow ? 

Eternal God ! on what are thine enemies intent ? What 
are those enterprises of guilt and horror, that, for the safety 
of their performers, require to be enveloped in a darkness 
which the eye of Heaven must not pierce ? Miserable men ! 
Proud of being the offspring of chance ; in love with universal 
disorder; whose happiness is involved in the belief of there 
being no witness to their designs, and who are at ease only 
because they suppose themselves inhabitants of a forsaken 
and fatherless world ! 



BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 

A. B. FULLER. 

Belshazzar presides at the thronged banquet, and his proud 
heart is elevated by the brilliant spectacle. The noble is 
there, glittering with the wealth extorted from the oppressed 
and enslaved ; while the flatterer, with smiling brow and wily 
heart, creeps with serpent noiselessness to whisper his wel- 
come adulations in the sovereign's ear. 

The maddening wine produces in the assemblage the laugh- 
ter of frenzied mirth ; the pointless but royal jest elicits peal 
after peal of hollow forced applause ; and the glare of myriad 
candles is reflected from all the barbaric splendor with dazzling 
radiance. The revel burns. But 't is not enough. " Drain 
the intoxicating bowl ! " commands the monarch; "raise the 
triumphant shout ! louder clash the cymbals, and softer rise 
the strains of delusive yet enchanting melody ! Stay, we will 
show ourselves equalwith, nay, greater than that Jehovah whose 
vengeance slumbers over the wrongs of oppressed Israel. 
Bring in the golden and silver vessels consecrated to his wor- 
ship and honor. They shall be filled with joyous wine, and 
be drained by lips of those who never spoke his praise." The 
royal mandate is obeyed. Those vessels, hallowed by many a 
prayer and dedicated to the service of the great I am, glitter at 
a pagan festival. The vaulted roof echoes with drunken 
laughter ; the sacred cup passes from one guilty hand to the 
grasp of another, and is drained by feverish, unnatural thirst ; 
triumphal strains of music are mingled with mad merriment. 

But — pause — look! Is it possible? In that same hour 



AND RECITATIONS. 83 

comes forth fingers of a man's hand and writes its mystic 
characters upon the palace wall. What a change has sud- 
denly come over the spirit of that dream of earth liness and 
sensuality! Is this banquet hall a tomb ? This silence that 
of the grave ? Are those motionless men, riveted and fasci- 
nated while gazing upon that mysterious hand ? Where has 
fled the merry jest ? Why, spell-bound, do the musicians 
cease their strains ? Have mirth, flattery, smiles — all so soon 
given place to the quivering lip, blanched cheek, and pallid 
brow upon which fear's agonized cold dew-drops rest ? Where 
now is that smooth flatterer, to whose blandishments the king 
gave such ready heed ? Has he no word of cheer and coun- 
sel ? None ! Then call in the soothsayers, and may they 
prove soothsayers indeed, — let the astrologers read auguries 
of hope in the stars, and then decipher these mystic words. 
Alas ! Their efforts prove futile, and the king is overwhelmed 
with despair. 

But a ray of hope, at length, shines into his clouded heart. 
He has been referred to a despised Jewish slave, who can give 
the sought-for relief through his excellent spirit and wisdom. 

Daniel is called. He enters, and stands calmly before the 
trembling monarch. How ! — does he not take advantage of 
the unexpected circumstance, and plead release from slavery ? 
No, for he stands before one more enslaved — a slave whom 
sensuality with her strong bands hath bound hand and foot. 
'T is the king clad in scarlet robes that supplicates, and for 
him are interpreted the mystic symbols. Thus can God ever 
in a moment change the relative position of men, causing 
Belshazzar to plead with Daniel, or a Felix to tremble before 
some courageous Paul. 



IN BEHALF OF EDUCATION. 

S. S. RANDALL. 

We appeal, in behalf of the cause of education, to every 
individual of our flourishing and happy land, who feels an 
interest in its continued prosperity, who would promote its 
substantial greatness, who would preserve its noble institu- 
tions, and transmit its blessings, unimpaired, to future genera- 
tions. We invoke the active, energetic, and spirited exertions 
of the friends of the human race, wherever they are to be 
found ; of those who rightly appreciate the influence of intel- 
lectual supremacy, who would enlarge the borders of reason, 
^nd extend its sway over the material universe. We would 



84 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

enlist the strongest and best feelings of the parent, the com- 
prehensive benevolence of the philanthropist, the proud am- 
bition of the patriot, the devoted energy of the statesman, and 
the most sincere ardor of the Christian, in an undertaking 
which promises to multiply the blessings of the social and 
domestic circle, widen the sphere of charity, cement the strong 
foundations of government, strengthen the bonds of our beloved 
Union, and promote the present and future happiness of man- 
kind. While we cheerfully and gratefully concede the value 
of what has already been effected in our own and in foreign 
climes, we would not stop here ; we would transfer the bur- 
den, which has been so nobly assumed and borne by the few, 
to the shoulders of the many. Where the highest and deepest 
interests of all are concerned, it is essential that every one 
should fully and clearly appreciate the nature and extent of 
the duty required at his hands. To drag out a few painful 
and unprofitable years of existence in a world crowded with 
misery is but a poor boon. To enjoy the luxuries of life, and 
to revel in the wealth which is always at the command of him 
who devotes to its acquisition his energies and his powers, can 
afford but an empty satisfaction to one who duly reflects on 
the instability of fortune and the vicissitudes of time. But to 
live for the benefit of the human race, — to be instrumental in 
adding to the cup of human happiness, in diminishing the 
amount of human wretchedness, in diffusing the beneficial 
influences of a sound and pure morality, in contributing to the 
stock of valuable knowledge, in bringing it home to thousands 
who would otherwise never have participated in its blessings, 
and in elevating the affections, strengthening the virtue, and 
refining the character of our fellow-beings, — this is an am- 
bition worthy of our high nature. The proudest monuments 
of enterprise, and the most finished specimens of the arts, can- 
not entitle their projectors and authors to .the high meed of 
commendation which those deserve who are thus prepared to 
overlook the perishable enjoyments which surround them, for 
the nobler and imperishable fruits of a comprehensive and 
enlightened benevolence. The age in which we live, with all 
its vast and gigantic undertakings, if destined to survive in 
the remembrance of posterity to all coming time, must be dis- 
tinguished, not for the influence which it has exerted on 
material substances alone, or chiefly, but for that which has 
been brought to bear on intellect, on morals, on refinement 
and civilization. The part we are to act in determining this 
character rests with ourselves — its consequences with pos- 
terity. The responsibility is a fearful one ; may it be nobly, 
conscientiously, and efficiently met. 



AND RECITATIONS. 85 

IGNORANCE IN OUR COUNTRY A CRIME. 

H. MANN. 

In all the dungeons of the old world, where the strong- 
champions of freedom are now pining in captivity beneath the 
remorseless power of the tyrant, the morning sun does not 
send a glimmering ray into their cells, nor does night draw a 
thicker veil of darkness between them and the world, but the 
lone prisoner lifts his iron-laden arms to heaven in prayer, 
that we, the depositaries of freedom, and of human hopes, may 
be faithful to our sacred trust; — while, on the other hand, the 
pensioned advocates of despotism stand, with listening ear, to 
catch the first sound of lawless violence that is wafted from 
our shores, to note the first breach of faith or act of perfidy 
amongst us, and to convert them into arguments against liberty 
and the rights of man. 

There is not a shout sent up by an insane mob, on this side 
of the Atlantic, but it is echoed by a thousand presses and by 
ten thousand tongues, along every mountain and valley, on the 
other. There is not a conflagration kindled here by the ruth- 
less hand of violence, but its flame glares over all Europe, 
from horizon to zenith. On each occurrence of a flagitious 
scene, whether it be an act of turbulence and devastation, or a 
deed of perfidy or breach of faith, monarchs point them out as 
fruits of the growth and omens of the fate of republics, and 
claim for themselves and their heirs a further extension of the 
lease of despotism. 

The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes of the 
ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in an appeal to 
us; — they implore us to think more of the character of our 
people than of its numbers ; to look upon our vast natural 
resources, not as tempters to ostentation and pride, but as a 
means to be converted, by the refining alchemy of education, 
into mental and spiritual treasures ; they supplicate us to seek 
for whatever complacency or self-satisfaction we are disposed 
to indulge, not in the extent of our territory, or in the prod- 
ucts of our soil, but in the expansion and perpetuation of the 
means of human happiness ; they beseech us to exchange the 
luxuries of sense for the joys of charity, and thus give to the 
world the example of a nation whose wisdom increases with 
its prosperity, and whose virtues are equal to its power. For 
these ends they enjoin upon us a more earnest, a more uni- 
versal, a more religious devotion to our exertions and resour- 
ces, to the culture of the youthful mind and heart of the 
nation. Their gathered voices assert the eternal truth, that, 
8 



Ob PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

IN A REPUBLIC, IGNORANCE IS A CRIME ; AND THAT PRIVATE 
IMMORALITY IS NOT LESS AN OPPROBRIUM TO THE STATE THAN IT 
IS GUILT IN THE PERPETRATOR. 



THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE. 

A. DE LAMARTINE. 

Citizens — In all the great acts of the life of a people, it 
hecomes the duty of the government to make its voice be heard 
by the people. 

You are about to accomplish the greatest act of the life of a 
people — to choose the representatives of the country ; to pro- 
duce from your consciences and your suffrages, not a mere 
government, but an entire constitution. You are going to 
organize the republic. 

For our part, we have only proclaimed it. Carried by ac- 
clamation to power during the interregnum of the people, we 
did not wish, and do not now wish, for any other dictatorship 
but that of absolute necessity. If we had refused the post of 
peril, we should have been cowards. If we should remain in 
it one hour more than necessity commands, we should be usur- 
pators. You alone are strong. We count the days. We 
hasten to give back the republic to the nation. 

The provisional election law which we have made is the 
widest that in any nation of the earth has ever convoked a 
people to the exercise of the supreme right of man, his own 
sovereignty. The election belongs to all, without exception. 
From the date of this law there are no more subjects in France. 
Every Frenchman of age is a political citizen. Every citizen 
is an elector. Every elector is sovereign. The law is equal 
and absolute for all. There is no citizen who can say to an- 
other, " You are more sovereign than I." Contemplate your 
power. Prepare to exercise it, and be worthy of entering into 
possession of your reign. The reign of the people is called 
the republic. 

Citizens, France is attempting, at this moment — in the 
midst of some financial difficulties, bequeathed to her by roy- 
alty, but under providential auspices — the greatest work of 
modern times, the foundation of the government of the entire 
people ; the organization of the democracy — the republic of 
all rights, of all interests, of all the interests, of all the intelli- 
gences, and of all the virtues ! Circumstances are propitious. 
Peace is possible. The new idea may be able to take its place 
in Europe, without any perturbation but that of the prejudices 



AND RECITATIONS. 87 

which people have against it. There is no anger in the minds 
of the people. If the fugitive royalty has not carried away 
with it all the enemies of the republic, it has left them power- 
less ; and although they are invested with all the rights which 
the republic guarantees to minorities, their interest and their 
prudence insure to us that they will not themselves trouble the 
peaceable foundation of the popular constitution. 

In three days that work which it was thought was postponed 
to distant times had been accomplished, without a drop of blood 
being spilt in France, without any other cry but that of admi- 
ration being heard in our departments or on our frontiers. Let 
us not lose this unique occasion in history. Let us not abdi- 
cate the greatest force of the new idea — the security which 
it inspires in citizens, the astonishment which it inspires in 
the world. 

Yet a few days of magnanimity, of devotion, of patience, 
and the National Assembly will receive from our hands the 
new-born republic. From that day all will be saved. When 
the nation, by the hands of its representatives, shall have 
seized the republic, the republic will be strong and great, like 
the nation ; holy, like the idea of the people ; imperishable, 
like the country. 

THE DISHONEST POLITICIAN. 

H. "W. BEECHER. 

If there be a man on earth whose character should be 
framed of the most sterling honesty, and whose conduct 
should conform to the most scrupulous morality, it is the man 
who administers public affairs. The most romantic notions 
of integrity are here not extravagant. As, under our institu- 
tions, public men will be, upon the whole, fair exponents of 
the character of their constituents, the plainest way to secure 
honest public men is to inspire those who make them with a 
right understanding of what political character ought to be. 

The lowest of politicians is that man who seeks to gratify 
an invariable selfishness by pretending to seek the public good. 
For a profitable popularity, he accommodates himself to all 
opinions, to all dispositions, to every side, and to each preju- 
dice. He is a mirror, with no face of its own, but a smooth 
surface from which each man of ten thousand may see him- 
self reflected. He glides from man to man, coinciding with 
their views, pretending their feelings, simulating their tastes ; 
with this one, he hates a man ; with that one, he loves the 
same man ; he favors a law, and he dislikes it ; he approves, 



88 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

and opposes ; he is on both sides at once, and seemingly 
wishes that he could be on one side more than both sides. 

He has associated his ambition, his interests, and his affec- 
tions, with a party. He prefers, doubtless, that his side should 
be victorious by the best means, and under the championship 
of good men ; but rather than lose the victory, he will con- 
sent to any means, and follow any man. Thus, with a gen- 
eral desire to be upright, the exigency of his party constantly 
pushes him to dishonorable deeds. He gradually adopts two 
characters, a personal and a political character. All the 
requisitions of his conscience he obeys in his private charac- 
ter ; all the requsitions of his party he obeys in his political 
conduct. In one character he is a man of principle ; in the 
other, a man of mere expedients. As a jnan^ he means to be 
veracious, honest, moral ; as a politician^ he is deceitful, cun- 
ning, unscrupulous, — anything for party. As a man, he 
abhors the slimy. demagogue ; as a politician, he employs 
him as a scavenger. As a man, he shrinks from the fiagi- 
tiousness of slander ; as a politician, he permits it, smiles 
upon it in others, rejoices in the success gained by it. As a 
man, he respects no one who is rotten in heart ; as a poli- 
tician, no man through whom victory may be gained can be 
too bad. 

For his religion he will give up all his secular interests ; 
but for his politics he gives up even his religion. He adores 
virtue, and rewards vice. Whilst bolstering up unrighteous 
measures, and more unrighteous men, he prays for the 
advancement of religion, and justice, and honor ! I would 
to God that his prayer might be answered upon his o^vn polit- 
ical head ; for never was there a place where such blessings 
were more needed ! What a heart has that man, who can 
stand in the very middle of the Bible, with its transcendant 
truths raising their glowing fronts on every side of him, and 
feel no inspiration but that of immorality and meanness ! Do 
not tell me of any excuses ! It is a shame to attempt an 
excuse ! If there were no religion ; if that vast sphere, out 
of which glow all the supereminent truths of the Bible was 
a mere emptiness and void ; yet, methinks, the very idea of 
Fatherland, the exceeding preciousness of the laws and lib- 
erties of a great people, would enkindle such a high and noble 
enthusiasm, that all baser feelings would be consumed ! But 
if the love of country, a sense of character, a manly regard 
for integrity, the example of our most illustrious men, the 
warnings of religion and all its solicitations, and the prospect 
of the future, cannot inspire a man to anything higher than a 
sneaking, truckling, dodging scramble for fraudulent fame and 



AND RECITATIONS. 



dishonest bread, it is because such a creature has never felt 
one sensation of manly virtue ; — it is because his heart is a 
howling wilderness, inhospitable to innocence. 



IN REPLY TO MR. WICKHAM. 

W. WIRT. 

In proceeding to examine the motion itself, and to answer 
the argument of the gentleman who opened it, I will treat him 
with candor. I will not follow the example which he has set 
me, on a very recent occasion, but I will endeavor to meet the 
gentleman's propositions in their full force, and to answer them 
fairly. I will not, as I am advancing towards them, with my 
mind's eye, measure the height, breadth and power of the 
proposition ; — if I find it beyond my strength, halve it ; if still 
beyond my strength, quarter it ; if still necessary, subdivide 
it into eighths ; and when by this process I have reduced it to 
the proper standard, take one of these sections and toss it with 
elephantine strength and superiority. If I find myself capa- 
ble of conducting, by a fair course of reasoning, any one of 
his propositions to an absurd conclusion, I will not begin by 
stating that absurd conclusion as the proposition itself which 
I am going to encounter. I will not, in commenting on the 
gentleman's authorities, thank the gentleman with sarcastic 
politeness for introducing them, declare that they concluded 
directly against him, read, just so much of the authority as 
serves the purpose of that declaration, omitting that which 
contains the true point of the case, which makes against me ; 
nor if forced by a direct call to read that part also, will I con- 
tent myself by running over it as rapidly and inarticulately 
as I can, throw down the book with a theatrical air, and ex- 
claim, just as I said ; when I know it is just as I have not said. 

I know that by adopting these arts I might raise a laugh 
at the gentleman's expense ; but I should be very little pleased 
with myself if I were capable of enjoying a laugh procured 
by such means. I know, too, that by adopting such arts 
there will always be those standing around us, who have not 
comprehended the whole merits of the legal discussion, with 
whom I might shake the character of the gentleman's science 
and judgment as a lawyer. I hope I shall never be capable 
of such a wish ; and I had hoped that the gentleman himself 
felt so strongly that proud, that high, aspiring, and ennobling 
magnanimity, which I had been told conscious talents rarely 
fail to_ inspire, that he would have disdained a poor and fleet- 
ing triumph gained by means like these. 
8=^ 



90 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

THE CHARACTER OF AVONMORE. 

J. p. CURRAN. 

I AM not ignorant, my lords, that this extraordinary con- 
struction has received the sanction of another court, nor of 
the surprise and dismay with which it smote upon the general 
heart of the bar. I am aware that I may have the mortifica- 
tion of being told, in another country, of that unhappy decis- 
ion ; and I foresee in what confusion I shall hang down my 
head when I am told it. But I cherish, too, the consolatory 
hope, that I shall be able to tell them that I had an old and 
learned friend, whom I would put above all the sweepings of 
their hall, who was of a different opinion ; who had derived 
his ideas of civil liberty from the purest fountains of Athens 
and of Rome ; who had fed the youthful vigor of his studious 
mind with the theoretic knowledge of their wisest philosophers 
and statesmen ; and who had refined the theory into a quick 
and exquisite sensibility of moral instinct, by contemplating 
the practice of their most illustrious examples ; — by dwelling 
on the sweet souled piety of Cimon ; on the anticipated 
Christianity of Socrates ; on the gallant and pathetic patriot- 
ism of Epaminondas ; on that pure austerity of Fabricius, 
whom to move from his integrity, would have been more 
difficult than to have pushed the sun from his course. 

I would add, that if he had seemed to hesitate, it was but 
for a moment ; that his hesitation was like the passing cloud 
that floats across the morning sun and hides it from the view, 
and does so for a moment hide it, by involving the spectator, 
without ever approaching the face of the luminary ; and this 
soothing hope I draw from the dearest and tenderest recollec- 
tions of my life, from the remembrance of Attic nights, and 
those refections of the gods which we have spent with those 
admired and respected and beloved companions who have 
gone before us, — over whose ashes the most precious tears 
of Ireland have been shed. — Yes, my lords, I see you do not 
forget them ; I see their sacred forms passing in sad review 
before your memory ; I see your pained and softened fancy 
recalling those happy meetings, when the innocent enjoyment 
of social mirth expanded into the nobler warmth of social 
virtue, and the horizon of the board became enlarged into 
the horizon of the man ; when the swelling heart conceived 
and communicated the pure and generous purpose ; when my 
slenderer and younger taper imbibed its borrowed light from 
the more matured and redundant fountain of yours. Yes, 



AND RECITATIONS. 91 

my lords, we can remember those nights without any other 
regret than that they can never more return, for 

We spent them not in toys, or lust, or wine, 

But search of deep philosophy, 

Wit, eloquence, and poesy. 
Arts which I loved ; for they^ my friend, were thine. 



A COLUMBIAN ORATOR. 

J. G. ADAMS. 

One of the most remarkable characters I have ever known 
was Mr. Columbus Climax. The name indicated the man. 
He was wholly Columbian — a royal son of self-glorification 
and patriotism unbounded. He did all for his countrv^ For 
his country he went forth in the morning to labor, and 
returned in the evening to rest. For his country he loudly 
talked, and sometimes swore a little, and now and then, too, 
readily and bravely applied 

" Hot and rebellious liquors to his blood." 

There were some family jars said to have been instigated 
by him, some outbreaks with his less patriotic and more quiet 
neighbors, and a few unhappy occasions, termed by certain 
legalized guardians of the public good, disturbances of the 
peace, — all for his country. No hour in the day or the night 
could you find him, when he was not ready to enter into the 
most extensive meditations for his country's good. 

The early education of our hero had not been the most 
thorough. The grammar, rhetoric, and logic of books, he 
had never learned. Yet his originality, his patriotism, and 
his oratorical powers, made up in a good measure the defi- 
ciency. He never lacked words. He never needed dictiona- 
ries. He manufactured the one, and defied the other. Both 
his exterior and interior seemed decidedly oratorical. He had 
a most imperturbable countenance. No lion could outlook him, 
especially when his green glasses were on. He stood erect 
nearly six feet in his large shoes ; and while he essayed to 
speak on that grandest of all topics, — our country, — his very 
coat-skirts seemed out-moving with inspiration. On two 
"glorious Fourths," and on one Washington's birth, did 
his unique eloquence enrapture listening multitudes. His 
sublime exordium at the erection of a liberty-pole is unsur- 
passed : " Friends and fellow-citizens. I congratulate you 
this morning on the salubrity of the weather ! " Equally 
rich and rare were all his comparisons and illustrations ; and 



92 PROSE DECLAMATIONS. 

great was the entertainment his orations ever gave to the less 
speechy, but more mischievous of our citizens. 

And now I cannot recall this individual without seeing 
most distinctly that Columbus Climax was a "representative, 
man ; " the bold outline and embodiment of a certain class, at 
this moment occupying more exalted stations than he, and 
getting far better pay, too, for their patriotism. In political 
caucuses, mass meetings, state legislatures, or national con- 
gresses, such patriots are seen and heard; all devotion to 
their country, talking, fuming, voting ; seeking and accepting 
office, by speedy movements or after long delays ; taking pay, 
glorifying party, full of the Eevolution, Liberty, and Posterity, 
— all for the country ! Veritable Columbuses, every man of 
them ; chuckling over their good luck in acquiring a political 
consequence, and ready, in consideration of it, to congratulate 
their fellow-citizens " on the salubrity of the weather ! " 



LYCEUM SPEECH OF MR. ORATOR CLIMAX. 

ANONYMOUS. 

Mr. President, — happiness is like a crow perched upon the 
neighboring top of a far distant mountain, which some fisher- 
man vainly strives, to no purpose, to ensnare. He looks at 
the crow, Mr. President, — and — Mr. President, the crow 
looks at him ; and, sir, they both look at each other. But the 
moment he attempts to reproach him, he banishes away like 
the schismatic taints of the rainbow, the cause of which, it 
was the astonishing and perspiring genius of a Newton, who 
first deplored and enveloped the cause of it. Cannot the poor 
man, sir, precipitate into all the beauties of nature, from the 
loftiest mounting up to the most humblest valley, as well as 
the man prepossessed of indigence ? Yes, sir ; while trilling 
transports crown his view, and rosy hours allure his sanguin- 
ary youth, he can raise his mind up to the laws of nature, 
incompressible as they are, while viewing the lawless storm 
that kindleth up the tremenjious roaring thunder, and fireth 
up the dark and rapid lightenings, and causeth it to fly 
through the intensity of space, that belches forth those awful 
and sublime meteors, and roll-abolly-aliases, through the un- 
fathomable regions of fiery hemispheres. Sometimes, sir, 
seated in some lovely retreat, beneath the shadowy shades of 
an umbrageous tree, at whose venal foot flows some limping 
stagnant stream, he gathers around him his wife and the rest of 



AND RECITATIONS. 93 

his orphan children. He there takes a retrospective view upon 
the diagram of futurity, and casts his eye Hke a flashing meteor 
forward into the past. Seated in their midst, aggravated and 
exhaled by the dignity and independence coincident with hon- 
orable poverty, his countenance irrigated with an intense glow 
of self deficiency and excommunicated knowledge, he quietly 
turns to instruct his little assemblage. He there endeavors to 
distil into their young youthful minds, useless lessons to guard 
their juvenile youths against vice and immortality. There, on a 
clear sunny evening, when the silvery moon is shining forth in 
all her indulgence and ubiquity, he teaches the first sediments 
of gastronomy, by pointing out to them the bear, the lion, and 
many other fixed invisible consternations, which are continu- 
ally involving upon their axletrees, through the blue cerulean 
fundamus above. From this vast etherial he dives with them 
to the very bottom of the unfathomable oceans, bringing up 
from thence liquid treasures of earth and air. He then courses 
with them on the imaginable wing of fancy through the bound- 
less regions of unimaginable either, until, swelling into impal- 
pable immensity, he is forever lost in the infinite radiation of 
his own overwhelming genius. 



UNLAWFUL MILITARY COMBINATIONS. 

J. MCLEAN. 

An obedience to the laws is the first duty of every citizen. 
It lies at the foundation of our noble political structure ; and 
when this great principle shall be departed from, with the 
public sanction, the moral influence of our government must 
terminate. 

If there be any one line of policy in which all political par- 
ties agree, it is, that we should keep aloof from the agitations 
of other governments. That we shall not intermingle our 
national concerns with theirs. And much more, that our cit- 
izens shall abstain from acts which lead the subjects of other 
governments to violence and bloodshed. 

A government is justly held responsible for the acts of its 
citizens. And if this government be unable or unwilling to 
restrain our citizens from acts of hostility against a friendly 
power, such power may hold this nation answerable, declare 
war against it. Every citizen is, therefore, bound by the 
regard he has for his country, by his reverence for its laws, 
and by the calamitous consequences of war, to exert his influ- 
ence in suppressing the unlawful enterprises of our citizens 
against any foreign and friendly power. 



94 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

History affords no example of a nation or people, that 
uniformly took part in the internal commotions of other gov- 
ernments, which did not bring ruin upon themselves. These 
pregnant examples should guard us against a similar policy, 
which must lead to a similar result. 

A war with a powerful nation, with whom we have the 
most extensive relations, commercial and social, would inflict 
upon our country the greatest calamity. It would dry up the 
sources of its prosperity, and deluge it in blood. 

The great principles of our republican institutions cannot 
be propagated by the sword. This can be done by moral force, 
and not physical. 

If we desire the political regeneration of oppressed nations, 
we must show them the simplicity, the grandeur, and the free- 
dom, of our own government. We must recommend it to the 
intelligence and virtue of other nations by its elevated and 
enlightened action, its purity, its justice, and the protection it 
aflx)rds to all its citizens, and the liberty they enjoy. And if, 
in this respect, we shall be faithful to the high bequests of our 
fathers, to ourselves, and to posterity, we shall do more to 
liberalize other governments, and emancipate their subjects, 
than could be accomplished by millions of bayonets. 

This moral power is what tyrants have most cause to dread. 
It addresses itself to the thoughts and the judgment of men. 
No physical force can arrest its progress. Its approaches are 
unseen, but its consequences are deeply felt. It enters garri- 
sons most strongly fortified, and operates in the palaces of 
kings and emperors. We should cherish this power, as essen- 
tial to the preservation of our government, and as the most 
efficient means of ameliorating the political condition of our 
race. And this can only be done by a reverence for the laws, 
and by the exercise of an elevated patriotism. 

I invoke, therefore, in behalf of the tribunals of justice, the 
moral power of society, I ask it to aid them in suppressing a 
combination of deluded or abandoned citizens, which immi- 
nently threatens the peace and prosperity of the country. And 
I have no fears, that when public attention shall be roused on 
this deeply important subject; when the laws are understood, 
and the duties of the government ; and when the danger is 
seen, and properly appreciated, there will be an expression so 
potent, from an enlightened and patriotic people, as to suppress 
all combinations in violation of the laws, and which threaten 
the peace of the country. 



AND RECITATIONS. 95 

TO THE JURY IN CASE OF O'BRIEN. 

WHITESIDE. 

Loved by those who knew him, generous, disinterested, 
■utterly unselfish through life, humane and tender hearted — 
my client now stands at the bar of his country, to answer for 
having meant to subvert the constitution which in heart he 
adores. His true offence is, that he courted for you what is 
England's glory, and blessing and pride. Deeply he may have 
erred in pursuit of this daring object — will you avenge his 
misdirected patriotism by a dreadful death ? 

You may do so ; and no earthly inducement will tempt me 
to say, if you pronounce the awful sentence of guilty, that 
you have not given the verdict conscience commanded. If his 
countrymen condemn my client, he will be ready to meet his 
fate with the faith of a Christian, and with the firmness of a 
man. The last accents of his lips will breathe a prayer for 
Ireland's happiness, Ireland's constitutional freedom. The 
dread moment that shall precede his mortal agonies will be 
consoled, if through his sufferings and his sacrifice some sys- 
tem of government shall arise — which I aver has never ex- 
isted — just, comprehensive, impartial, and, above all, consist- 
ent, which may conduct to wealth, prosperity and greatness, 
the country he has loved, not wisely, perhaps, but too well. 

Would to God, Mr. Smith O'Brien were my only client. 
The future happiness of an honorable, ancient, loyal family is 
here at stake — the church, the bar, the senate, can furnish 
relatives near and dear to this unhappy gentleman, who, 
although they differ in political opinion, have hastened to give 
to him brotherly consolation this melancholy day. Ireland has 
been the scene of their benevolent exertions — the source of 
their joys, their pride ; her misery has been their affliction, 
her gleams of prosperity their delight. With bolder hearts, 
should you consign the prisoner to the scaffold, they must 
henceforward straggle on through a cheerless existence, labor- 
ing in sorrow for the country they love. 

A venerable lady, who has dwelt amid an affectionate ten- 
antry, spending her income where it was raised, diffusing her 
charities and her blessings around, awaits now, with trembling 
heart, your verdict. If a verdict consigning her beloved son 
to death — that heart will quickly beat no more. Alas ! more 
dreadful still — six innocent children will hear from your lips 
whether they are to be stripped of an independence which has 



96 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

descended in his family for ages — whether they are to be 
driven, fatherless and beggared, upon the world, by the rigor 
of a barbarous and cruel law — whether they are to be restored 
to peace and joy, or plunged into the uttermost depths of black 
despair. There is another who clings to hope — hope, may 
it be blessed, in you ! Her life's blood would be gladly shed 
to save the object of her youthful affections — you will not 
consign her to an untimely grave ! 

In a case of doubt, at the very worst, let a father's pity be 
awakened — a husband's love be moved. Let justice be ad- 
ministered — but justice in mercy. In no pitiful strains do I 
seek compassion for my client, even in a case of blood. I ask 
it solemnly, in the spirit of our free constitution — in accord- 
ance with the rooted principles of our common law. This is 
a cause between the subject and the crown, wherein these 
great principles might shine out in glorious perfection. A 
verdict of acquittal, in accordance with this divine doctrine, will 
not be a triumph over the law. When the sovereign seals by 
her coronation oath the great compact between the people and 
the crown, she swears to execute, in all her judgments, justice 
in mercy. That same justice you administer ; no rigorous, 
remorseless, sanguinary code — but justice in mercy. 

Where, as here, the crime consists in the intent of the heart, 
and you can believe that intent not treasonable, or even doubt- 
ful, then, by the solemn obligations even of coldest duty, you 
should yield to mercy. In nothing, though at an immeasura- 
ble distance still, do men on earth so nearly approach the 
attribute of the Almighty as in the administration of justice 
tempered with mercy, or dismal would be our fate. As you 
hope for mercy from the Great Judge, grant it this day ! 
The awful issues of life and death are in your hands — do 
justice in mercy ! The last faint murmur on your quivering 
lips will be for mercy, ere the immortal spirit shall wing its 
flight to, I trust, a better and brighter world ! 



SPEECH OF VINDICATION. 



My Lords : What have I to say why sentence of death 
should not be pronounced on me, according to law? — I have 
nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that 
it will become me to say, with any view to the mitigation of 
that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and I must 



AND RECITATIONS. 97 

abide by. But I have that to say, which interests me more 
than life, and which yon have labored to destroy. I have 
much to say, why my reputation should be rescued from the 
load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped 
upon it. 

Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by 
your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that 
awaits me without a murmur ; but the sentence of law which 
delivers my body to the executioner will, through the minis- 
try of that law, labor, in its own vindication, to consign my 
character to obloquy ; for there must be guilt somewhere — 
whether in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, 
posterity must determine. The man dies, but his memory 
lives. That mine may not perish , —*■ that it may live in the 
respect of my countrymen, — I seize upon this opportunity to 
vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me. 
When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port ; 
when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred 
heroes who have shed their blood, on the scaffold and in the 
field, in defence of their country and virtue ; this is my hope, 
— I wish that my memory and name may animate those who 
survive me, while I look down with complacency on the 
destruction of that perfidious government, which upholds its 
domination by blasphemy of the Most High, which displays 
its power over man as over the beasts of the forest, which 
sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of 
God, against the throat of his fellow, who believes or doubts 
a little more or less than the government standard, — a gov- 
ernment which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the 
orphans and the tears of the widows, which its cruelty has 
m.ade. 

I swear, by the throne of Heaven, before which I must 
shortly appear, — by the blood of the murdered patriots who 
have gone before me, — that my conduct has been, through 
all this peril, and all my purposes, governed only by the con- 
victions which I have uttered, and no other view than that 
of the emancipation of my country from the superinhuman 
oppression under which she has so long, and too patiently, 
travailed ; and that I confidently and assuredly hope, (wild 
and chimerical as it may appear,) there is still union and 
strength in Ireland, to accomplish this noble enterprise. 

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dis- 
honor ; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I 
could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's 
liberty and independence ; or that I could have become the 
9 



98 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

pliant minion of power, in the oppression or the miseries of 
my countrymen. I would not have submitted to a foreign 
oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic 
tyrant; in the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon 
the threshold of my country, and her enemies should enter 
only by passing over my lifeless corpse. Am I, who lived 
but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the 
vengeance of the jealous and wrathful oppressor, and to the 
bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their 
rights, — am I to be loaded with calumny, and not to be 
suffered to resent or repel it ? No ! — God forbid ! 

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the con- 
cerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transi- 
tory life, — O ever dear and venerated shade of my departed 
father, look down with scrutiny on the conduct of your suffer- 
ing son ; and see if I have even for a moment deviated from 
those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your 
care to instil into my youthful mind, and for an adherence to 
which I am now to offer up my life ! 

My lords, you are all impatient for the sacrifice. The 
blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial 
terrors which surround your victim ; it circulates warmly and 
unruffled, through the channels which God created for noble 
purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so 
grievous that they cry to heaven I Be yet patient ! I have 
but a few words more to say. I am going to my silent grave ; 
my lamp of life is nearly extinguished ; my race is run ; the 
grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have 
but one request to ask at my departure from this world, — it 
is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph ; 
for, as no one who knows my motives dare now vindicate 
them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them 
and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain 
uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice 
to my character. When my country shall take her place 
among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let 
my epitaph be written ! 



NECESSITY OF RESISTANCE. 

p. HENRY. 

Mr. President, — It is natural for man to indulge in the 
illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a 



AND RECITATIONS. 99 

painful truth ; and listen to the song- of that siren, till she 
transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, 
engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty ? Are we 
disposed to be of the number of those, who, having eyes, see 
not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly 
concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever 
anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole 
truth ; to know the worst, and to provide for it. 

I have but one lamp, by which my feet are guided ; and 
that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging 
of the future but by the past. And, judging by the past, I 
wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the 
British ministry, for the last ten years, to justify these hopes 
with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves 
and the house ? Is it that insidious smile with which our 
petition has been lately received ? Trust it not, sir ; it will 
prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be 
betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious 
reception of our petition comports with those warlike prepa- 
rations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are 
fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconcilia- 
tion ? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be recon- 
ciled, that force must be called in to win back our love ? Let 
us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of 
war and subjugation — the last arguments to which kings 
resort. 

I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its 
purpose be not to force us to submission ? Can gentlemen 
assign any other possible motive for it ? Has Great Britain 
any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this 
accumulation of navies and armies ? No, sir ; she has none. 
They are meant for us ; they can be meant for no other. 
They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains 
J which the British ministry have been so long forging. And 
what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? 
Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have 
we anything new to offer upon the subject ? Nothing. We 
have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable ; 
but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and 
humble supplication ? What terms shall we find, w^hich have 
not been already exhausted ? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, 
deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that 
could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. 
We have petitioned ; we have remonstrated ; we have suppli- 
cated ; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and 



100 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands 
of the ministry and parliament. Our petitions have heen 
slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional vio- 
lence and insult ; our supplications have been disregarded ; 
and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of 
the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the 
fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer 
any room for hope. If we wish to be free ; if we mean to 
preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we 
have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to 
abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long 
engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to 
abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be 
obtained — we must fight ! I repeat it, sir, — we must fight ! 
An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is 
left us ! 

They tell us, sir, that we are weak, — unable to cope with 
so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger ? 
Will it be the next week, or the next year ? Will it be when 
we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be 
stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by 
irresolution and inaction ? Shall we acquire the means of 
effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and 
hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies 
shall have bound us hand and foot ? Sir, we are not weak, 
if we make a proper use of those means which the God of 
nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, 
armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as 
that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our 
enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight 
our battles alone. There is a just God, who presides over the 
destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our 
battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone ; it 
is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have 
no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too 
late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in 
submission and slavery ! Our chains are forged ! Their 
clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston I The war is 
inevitable — and let it come ! I repeat it, sir, — let it come ! 

It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may 
cry, peace, peace — but there is no peace. The war is actu- 
ally begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the north will 
bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren 
are already in the field ! Why stand we here idle ? What 
is it that gentlemen wish ? what would they have ? Is life 



AND RECITATIONS. 101 

SO dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of 
chains and slavery ? Forbid it. Almighty God ! I know not 
what course others may take, but, as lot me, give me liberty, 
or give me death ! 



ON CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES. 



Mr. Speaker : My hold of the colonies is in the close 
affection which grows from common names, from kindred 
blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These 
are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of 
iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil 
rights associated with your government; — they will cling 
and grapple to you ; and no force under heaven will be of 
power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once 
understood, that your government may be one thing and their 
privileges another ; that these two things may exist without 
any mutual relation; — the cement is gone, the cohesion is 
loosened, and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As 
long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority 
of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple 
consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race 
and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their 
faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends 
you will have ; the more ardently they love liberty, the more 
perfect will be their obedience. 

Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows 
in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have 
it from Prussia ; but until you become lost to all feeling of 
your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can 
have from none but you. This is the commodity of price, of 
which you have the monopoly. This is the true act of navi- 
gation, which binds you to the commerce of the world. 
Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that 
sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the 
unity of the empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagina- 
tion, as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits 
and your sufferances, your coquets and your clearances, are 
what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not 
dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and 
your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the 
great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do 
not make your government. Dead instruments, passive tools, 
9^« 



102 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

as they are, it is the spirit of the English communion that 
gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit of 
the English constitution which, infused through the mighty 
mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies, every part 
of the empire, even down to the minutest member. 

Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here 
in England ? Do you imagine, then, that it is the land-tax 
act which raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote in 
the committee of supply which gives you your army ? or that 
it is the mutiny bill which inspires it with bravery and dis- 
cipline ? No ! Surely no ! It is the love of the people, it is 
their attachment to their government, from the sense of the 
deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which 
gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both 
that liberal obedience, without which, your army would be a 
base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. 

Let us, then, get an American revenue, as we have got an 
American empire. English privileges have made it all that 
it is ; English privileges will make it all it can be. In full 
confidence of this unalterable truth, I now lay the first stone 
of the temple of peace. 



AGAINST THE FORCE BILL. 

J. C. CALHOUN. 

For what purpose is the unlimited control of the purse and 
of the sword to be placed at the disposition of the executive ? 
To make war against one of the free and sovereign members 
of this confederation, which the bill proposes to deal with, not 
as a state, but as a collection of banditti or outlaws. Thus 
exhibiting the impious spectacle of this government, the crea- 
ture of the states, making war against the power to which it 
owes its existence. 

The bill violates the constitution, plainly and palpably, in 
many of its provisions, by authorizing the president, at his 
pleasure, to place the different ports of this Union on an une- 
qual footing, contrary to that provision of the constitution 
which declares that no preference shall be given to one port 
over another. It also violates the constitution, by authorizing 
him, at his discretion, to impose cash duties on one port while 
credit is allowed in others ; by enabling the president to reg- 
ulate commerce, a power vested in congress alone ; and by 
drawing within the jurisdiction of the United States' courts 



AND RECITATIONS. 103 

powers never intended to be conferred on them. As great as 
these objections are, they become insignificant in the provisions 
of a bill, which, by a single blow, by treating the states as a 
mere lawless mass of individuals, prostrates all the barriers of 
the constitution. It proceeds on the ground that the entire sov- 
ereignty of this country belongs to the American people, as 
forming one great community, and regards the states as mere 
fractions or counties, and not as an integral part of the Union; 
having no more right to resist the encroachments of the 
government than a county has to resist the authority of a 
state ; and treating such resistance as the lawless acts of so 
many individuals, without possessing sovereignty or political 
rights. 

It has been said that the bill declares war against South 
Carolina. No ! It decrees a massacre of her citizens ! War 
has something ennobling about it, and, with all its horrors, 
brings into action the highest qualities, intellectaal and moral. 
It was, perhaps, in the order of Providence, that it should be 
permitted for that very purpose. But this bill declares no 
war, except, indeed, it be that which savages wage ; a war, 
not against the community, but the citizens of whom that 
community is composed. But I regard it as worse than sav- 
age warfare — as an attempt to take away life, under the color 
of law, without the trial by jury, or any other safeguard which 
the constitution has thrown around the life of the citizen ! It 
authorizes the president, or even his deputies, when they may 
suppose the law to be violated, without the intervention of a 
court or jury, to kill without mercy or discrimination. 

It has been said by the senator from Tennessee to be a 
measure of peace ! Yes, such peace as the wolf gives to the 
lamb — the kite to the dove ! Such peace as Russia gives to 
Poland, or death to its victim ! A peace by extinguishing the 
political existence of the state, by awing her into an aban- 
donment of the exercise of every power which constitutes her 
a sovereign community ! It is to South Carolina a question 
of self-preservation ; and I proclaim it, that, should this bill 
pass, and an attempt be made to enforce it, it will be resisted, 
at every hazard — even that of death itself ! Death is not the 
greatest calamity; there are others, still more terrible to the 
free and brave, and among them may be placed the loss of 
liberty and honor. There are thousands of her brave sons 
who, if need be, are prepared cheerfully to lay down their 
lives in defence of the state, and the great principles of con- 
stitutional liberty for which she is contending. God forbid that 
this should become necessary ! It never can be, unless this 



104 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

government is resolved to bring the question to extremity; 
when her gallant sons will stand prepared to perform the last 
duty — to die nobly ! 



EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED IN NEW 
YORK. 

C. M. CLAY. 

I BLAY be an enthusiast ; but I cannot but give utterance to 
the conceptions of my own mind. When I look upon the 
special developments of European civilization ; when I con- 
template the growing freedom of the cities, and the middle 
class which had sprung up between the pretenders to Divine 
rule on the one hand, and the abject serf on the other ; when 
I consider the Reformation, and the invention of the press, 
and see, on the southern shore of the continent, an humble 
individual, amidst untold difficulties and repeated defeats, 
pursuing the mysterious suggestions which the mighty deep 
poured unceasingly upon his troubled spirit, till at last, with 
great and irrepressible energy of soul, he discovered that there 
lay in the far western ocean a continent open for the infusion 
of those elementary principles of liberty which were dwarfed 
in European soil, — I have conceived that the hand of destiny 
was there ! 

When I saw the immigration of the pilgrims from the 
chalky shores of England — in the night fleeing from their 
native home — so dramatically and ably pictured by Mr. Web- 
ster in his celebrated oration — when father, mother, brother, 
wife, sister, lover, were all lost, by those melancholy wan- 
derers " stifling," in the language of one who is immortal in 
the conception, " the mighty hunger of the heart," and land- 
ing amidst cold, and poverty, and death, upon the rude rocks 
of Plymouth — I have ventured to think the will of Deity was 
there ! 

When I have remembered the revolution of '76 — the seven 
years' war — three millions of men in arms against the most 
powerful nation in history, and vindicating their independence 

— I have thought that their suflTerings and death were not in 
vain ! When I have gone and seen the forsaken hearth-stone 

— looked in upon the battle-field, upon the dying and the 
dead — heard the agonizing cry, " water, for the sake of God ! 
water," seeing the dissolution of this being — pale lips press- 
ing in death the yet loved images of wife, sister, lover — I 



AND RECITATIONS. 105 

will not deem all these in vain ! I cannot regard this great 
continent, reaching from the Atlantic to the far Pacific, and 
from the St. Johns to the Rio del Norte, a barbarian people 
of third rate civilization. 

Like the Roman who looked back upon the glory of his 
ancestors, in woe exclaiming, 

" Great Scipio's ghost complains that we are slow, 
And Pompey's shade walks unavenged among us," 

the great dead hover around me, — LawTence, " Don't give up 
the ship ! " — Henry, " Give me liberty or give me death !" — 
Adams, " Survive or perish, I am for the declaration !" — Allen, 
" 111 the name of the living God, I come ! " 

Come, then, thou Eternal! who dwellest not in temples 
made with hands, but who, in the city's crowd or by the far 
forest stream, revealest thyself to the earnest seeker after the 
true and right ; inspire my heart — give me undying courage 
to pursue the promptings of my spirit ; and whether I shall be 
called in the shades of life to look upon as sweet, and kind, 
and lovely faces as now, or, shut in by sorrow and night, hor- 
rid visages shall gloom upon me in my dying hour — Oh ! my 

COUNTRY, MAYEST THOU YET BE FREE ! 



CRIME ITS OWN DETECTER. 

D. WEBSTER. 

Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot 
have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest 
injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to 
the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheer- 
fully share in the opprobrium, how much soever it may be, 
which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious con- 
cern that all who had a part in planning, or a hand in execut- 
ing, this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to 
answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice. 

Gentlemen, this is a most extraordinary case. In some 
respects it has hardly a precedent anywhere — certainly none 
in our New England history. An aged man, without an 
enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, 
is made the victim of a butchery murder, for mere pay. 
Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all be- 
neath his roof. A healthful old man to whom sleep was 
sweet — the first sound slumbers of the night hold him in 
their soft but strong embrace. 



106 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

The assassin enters through the window, already prepared, 
into an unoccupied apartment ; with noiseless foot he paces 
the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon ; he winds up the 
ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. 
Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till 
it turns on its hinges ; and he enters and beholds his victim 
before him. The room was uncommonly light. The face of 
the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer ; and the 
beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged tem- 
ple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given, 
and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from 
the repose of sleep to the repose of death ! It is the assas- 
sin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dag- 
ger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by 
the blow of the bladgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that 
he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again 
over the wounds of the poignard ! To finish the picture, he 
explores the wrist for the pulse ! he feels it, and ascertains 
that it beats no longer ! It is accomplished ! the deed is done ! 
He retreats — retraces his steps to the window, passes through 
as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder; no 
eye has seen him, no ear has heard hiin ; the secret is his 
own, and he is safe ! 

Ah ! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a 
secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has 
neither nook nor corner, where the guilty can bestow it and 
say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which glances through 
all disguises, and beholds everything as in the splendor of 
noon, — such secrets of guilt are never safe ; " murder will out." 
True it is that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so gov- 
ern things, that those who break the great law of heaven, by 
shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. 
Especially in a case exciting so much attention as this, dis- 
covery must and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes 
turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circum- 
stance, connected w^th the time and place ; a thousand ears 
catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intently dwell 
on the scene ; shedding all their light, and ready to kindle 
the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Mean- 
time the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to 
itself — or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience 
to be true to itself — it labors under its guilty possession, and 
knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not 
made for the residence of such an inhabitant ; it finds itself 
preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to 



AND RECITATIONS. 



107 



God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it asks no sym- 
pathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret 
which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; and 
like the evil spirits of v^^hich we read, it overcomes him, and 
leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his 
heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He 
thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his 
eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his 
thoughts. It has become his master ; — it betrays his discre- 
tion ; it breaks down his courage ; it conquers his prudence. 
When suspicions, from without, begin to embarrass him, and 
the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret 
struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be 
confessed ; it will be confessed ; there is no refuge from con- 
fession but in suicide, and suicide is confession. 



IN BEHALF OF GREECE. 

H. CLAY. 

Mr. Chairman, — It has been admitted by all that there is 
impending over this country a threatening storm, which is 
likely to call into action all our vigor, courage, and resources. 
Is it a wise way of preparing for this awful event, to talk to 
this nation of its incompetency to resist European aggression, 
to lower its spirit, to weaken its moral force, and do what 
we can to prepare it for base submission and easy conquest ? 
If, sir, there be any reality in this menacing danger, I 
would rather adjure the nation to remember, that it contains 
a million of freemen capable of bearing arms, and ready to 
exhaust their last drop of blood, and their last cent, in defend- 
ing their country, its institutions, and its liberty. Sir, are 
these to be conquered, by all Europe united ? No, sir, — 
no united nation can be, that has the spirit to resolve not to 
be conquered ; such a nation is ever invincible. And, sir, 
has it come to this ? Are we so humbled, so low, so despica- 
ble, that we dare not express our sympathy for suffering 
Greece, lest, peradventure, we might offend some one or more 
of their imperial and royal majesties ? If gentlemen are 
afraid to act rashly on such a subject, suppose, Mr. Chair- 
man, that we draw an humble petition addressed to their 
majesties, asking them that of their condescension they would 
allow us to express something on the subject. 

How, sir, shall it begin ? " We, the representatives of the 
free people of the United States of America, humbly ap- 



108 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

preach the thrones of your imperial and royal majesties, and 
supplicate that of your imperial and royal clemency " — I 
will not go through the disgusting recital ; my lips have not 
yet learnt the sycophantic language of a degraded slave ! 

Are we so low, so hase, so despicable, that we may not 
express our horror, articulate our detestation, of the most 
brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth, or shocked 
high heaven, with the ferocious deeds of a brutal soldiery, set 
on by the clergy and followers of a fanatical and inimical 
religion, and rioting in excess of blood and butchery, at the 
mere details of which the heart sickens ? 

If the great mass of Christendom can look coolly and 
calmly on, while all this is perpetrated on a Christian people, 
in their own vicinity, in their very presence, let us, at least, 
show that, in this distant extremity, there is still some sensi- 
bility and sympathy for Christian wrongs and sufferings ; that 
there are still feehngs, which can kindle into indignation at 
the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient 
recollection and every modern tie. 

But, sir, it is not first and chiefly for Greece, that I wish to 
see this measure adopted. It will give them but little aid, 
— that aid purely of a moral kind. 

It is indeed soothing and solacing in distress, to hear the 
accents of a friendly voice. We know this as a people. But, 
sir, it is principally and mainly for America herself, for the 
credit and character of our common country, that I hope to 
see this resolution pass ; it is for our own unsullied narhe 
that I feel. What appearance, sir, on the page of history, 
would a record like this make : — "In the month of January, 
in the year of our Lord and Saviour, 1824, while all European 
Christendom beheld with cold, unfeeling apathy the unex- 
ampled wrongs and inexpressible misery of Christian Greece, 
a proposition was made in the congress of the United States, — 
almost the sole, the last, the greatest repository of human 
hope and of human freedom, the representatives of a nation 
capable of bringing into the field a million of bayonets, — while 
the freemen of that nation were spontaneously expressing its 
deep-toned feeling, its fervent prayer, for Grecian success; 
while the whole continent was rising by one simultaneous 
motion, solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking the 
aid of heaven to spare Greece, and to invigorate her arms ; while 
temples and senate-houses were all resounding with one burst 
of generous sympathy; — in the year of our Lord and Saviour, 
- — that Saviour alike of Christian Greece and of us — a propo- 
sition was offered in the American congress, to send a messen- 



AND RECITATIONS. 109 

ger to Greece, to inquire into her state and condition, with 
an expression of our good wishes and our sympathies ; — and 
it was rejected !" Go home, if you dare, — go home, if you 
can, to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it 
down! Meet, if you dare, the appalling countenances of 
those who sent you here, and tell them, that you shrank from 
the declaration of your own sentiments — that, you cannot 
tell how, hut that some unknown dread, some indescribable 
apprehension, some indefinable danger, afTrighted you — that 
the spectres of cimeters, and crowns, and crescents, gleamed 
before you, and alarmed you ; and that you suppressed all the 
noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national 
independence, and by humanity ! I cannot bring myself to 
believe that such will be the feeling of a majority of this 
house. 

But, for myself, though every friend of the measure should 
desert it, and I Mt to stand alone with the gentleman from 
Massachusetts, I will give to the resolution the poor sanction 
of my unqualified approbation. 



THE EXACT SCIENCES. 

E. EVEKETT. 

There are some departments of exact science which must 
be regarded as forming the grandest study of which the mind 
is capable, and as eminently calculated, for this reason, to give 
it strength and elevation. The vastness and multitude of the 
heavenly bodies, which form, for instance, the subject of as- 
tronomy, — bodies which the highest calculus is as little able 
to number and weigh as the humblest arithmetic ; the gran- 
deur of the laws which it discloses and applies ; the bound- 
less distances which it spans ; the periods, all but eternal, 
which it estimates, — impart a sublimity to this branch of 
science, which lifts the soul to the heavens. It is, indeed, the 
glory of science, in every branch, that it gives life and beauty 
to everything which it touches. It has but to cast a ray of 
light on a drop of dew, to people it with races of alert and 
sportive organisms. It throws its glance upon the sap vessels 
of an humble weed, and traces in them, in full flow, the silver 
tides of vegetable circulation. It but touches a bar of steel, 
and makes it beat with the pulses of that mysterious influ- 
ence which throbs simultaneously around the globe ; and in 
language which we may well repeat, since the wit of man 
cannot mend it, 
10 



110 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

" Finds tong-ues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

But while each and every part of knowledge, in thus giving 
voice to the pebble and the star, and awakening from all na- 
ture a concert of the divinest music, is directly calculated to 
strengthen and elevate the mental faculties, the palm seems 
justly due to that grand philosophy, of which faint glimpses 
were caught by the early sages of Greece ; of which the found- 
ations were nobly strengthened and enlarged by the succes- 
sive discoveries and labors of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo ; 
and on which Newton, at last, with the rarest mixture of 
qualities which the world has ever witnessed, — now shrinking 
with childlike humility from his own discoveries, now scaling 
the heavens with the Titanic boldness of his generalizations, 
— was enabled at last to establish the system of the universe. 



KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. 

E. H. CHAPIN. 

Sufficient is it that men have felt and enunciated the 
sublime doctrine that "knowledge is power;" that, as mind 
is superior to matter, so are ideas more potent and enduring 
than prodigies of physical might. Archimedes' thought is 
stronger than his lever. The mind that planned the pyra- 
mids was more powerful than the hands that piled them. 
The inventors of the mariner's compass and the telescope 
have outdone the Macedonian, and won new worlds. And 
the influence of the Ccesars seems mean and narrow beside the 
imperial dominion of the printing press. Physical force is 
sectional, and acts in defined methods. But knowledge de- 
fies gravitation, and is not thwarted by space. It is miracu- 
lous in the wonder of its achievements, and in its indepen- 
dence of precedent and routine. " Knowledge is power ! " 
Man gains wider dominion by his intellect than by his right 
arm. The mustard-seed of thought is a pregnant treasury 
of vast results. Like the germ in Egyptian tombs, its vitality 
never perishes, and its fruit will spring up after it has been 
buried for long ages. To the superficial eye, the plain of 
modern history is merely an arena of battle and treaty, colo- 
nization and revolution. To the student, this modern history, 
so diversified and mutable, indicates more than this. Luther 
and Cromwell, Pilgrim-rock and the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, are the results of an invisible but mighty power — a 



AND RECITATIONS. Ill 

leveling and exalting- power — a power which, with no mere 
Cyclopean effort, no fitful Etna convulsion, but with silent 
throbbings, like some great tidal force in nature, is slowly 
undermining all falsehood, and heaving the mass of humanity 
upwards. But to dwell upon the power of knowledge, intel- 
lect, thought, is to run into trite declamation. The scholar 
who has wrung this power in toil and sacrifice knows it full 
well. He sees it, in secret places, distilling as the dew, and 
dropping as the gentle rain from heaven, and everywhere 
diffusing its potent spell. He experiences its superiority over 
nature and brute force. He knows its conquests in the past 
and in the future. 



IN REPLY TO CORRY. 

H. GRATTAN. 

The right honorable gentleman says I fled from the coun- 
try after exciting rebellion ; and that I have returned to raise 
another. No such thing. The charge is false ! The civil 
war had not commenced when I left the kingdom, and I could 
not have returned without taking part. On the one side, 
there was the camp of the rebel ; on the other side, the camp 
of the minister — a greater traitor than the rebel. 

The stronghold of the constitution was nowhere to be found. 
I agree that the rebel who rises against the government should 
have suffered; but I missed, on the scaffold, the right honor- 
able gentleman. Two desperate parties were in arms against 
the constitution. The right honorable gentleman belonged to 
one of these parties, and deserved death. I could not join the 
rebel — I could not join the government — I could not join 
torture — I could not join half-hanging — I could not join free 
quarter. I could take part with neither. I was therefore 
absent from a scene where I could not be active without self- 
reproach, nor indifferent with safety. 

Many honorable gentlemen thought differently from me ; I 
respect their opinions, but I keep my own; and I think now, 
as I thought then, that the treason of the minister against the 
liberties of the people was infinitely worse than the rebellion of 
the people against the minister. 

I have returned, not, as the right honorable member has 
said, to raise another storm, — I have returned to discharge 
an honorable debt of gratitude to my country, that conferred 
a great reward for past services ; which, I am proud to say, 
was not greater than my desert. I have returned to protect 



112 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

that constitution of which I was the parent and the founder 
from the assassination of such men as the right honorable 
gentleman and his unworthy associates. They are corrupt 
— they are seditious — and they, at this very moment, are in 
a conspiracy against their country ! I have returned to refute 
a libel as false as it is malicious, given to the public under 
the appellation of a report of a committee of the lords. Here 
I stand, ready for impeachment or trial ! I dare accusation I 
I defy the honorable gentleman ! I defy the government ! I 
defy their whole phalanx ! — let them come forth. 1 tell the 
ministers I will neither give them quarter nor take it ! I am 
here to lay the shattered remains of my constitution on the 
floor of this house, in defence of the liberties of my country ! 



ADDRESS TO CITIZENS AND SOLDIERS. 

A. JACKSON. 

Fellow Citizens and Soldiers : — The general command- 
ing in chief would not do justice to the noble ardor that has 
animated you in the hour of danger, he would not do justice 
to his own feelings, if he suffered the example you have shown 
to pass without public notice. Inhabitants of an opulent com- 
mercial town,=^ you have, by a spontaneous effort, shaken off 
the habits which are created by wealth, and shown that you 
are resolved to deserve the blessings of fortune, by bravely 
defending them. Long strangers to the perils of war, you 
have emboldened yourselves to face them with the cool coun- 
tenance of veterans; — with motives of disunion that might 
have operated on some minds, you have forgotten the differ- 
ences of language and prejudice of national pride, and united 
with a cordiality that does honor to your understanding as 
well as to your patriotism. 

Natives of the United States ! They are the oppressors of 
your infant political existence, with whom you are to contend 
— they are the men your fathers fought and conquered, whom 
you are now to oppose. 

Descendants of Frenchmen ! Natives of France ! They 
are English, — the hereditary, the eternal enemies of your an- 
cient country — the invaders of that you have adopted, — who 
are your foes. 

Spaniards! Eemember the conduct of your allies at St. 

* New Orleans. 



AND RECITATIONS. 113 

Sebastian, and recently at Pensacola, and rejoice that you 
have an opportunity of avenging- the brutal injuries inflicted 
by men who dishonor the human race. 

Louisianians ! Your general rejoices to witness the spirit 
that animates you, not only for your honor, but your safety. 
Commanding men who know their rights, and are determined 
to defend them, he salutes you as brethren in arms, and has 
now a new motive to exert all his faculties to the utmost in 
your defence. Continue with the energy you have begun, 
and he promises you not only safety, but victory over an in- 
solent foe, who has insulted you by an affected doubt of your 
attachment to the constitution of your country. Your enemy 
is near ; his sails already cover the lakes. But the brave are 
united ; and if he find us contending among ourselves, it will 
be for the prize of valor, and fame, its noblest reward. 



SPEECH OF AN INDIAN PRISONER. 

BLACK HAWK. 

You have taken me prisoner, with aU my warriors. I am 
much grieved; for I expected, if I did not defeat you, to hold 
out much longer, and give you more trouble before I surren- 
dered. I tried hard to bring you into ambush, but your last 
general understood Indian fighting. I determined to rush on 
you, and fight you face to face. I fought hard. But your 
guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the 
air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through the trees 
in winter. 

My warriors fell around me; it began to look dismal. I 
saw my evil day at hand. The sun rose dim on us in the 
morning, and at night it sank in a dark cloud, and looked like 
a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on Black 
Hawk. His heart is dead, and no longer beats quick in his 
bosom. He is now a prisoner to the white men ; they will 
do with him as they wish. But he can stand torture, and is 
not afraid of death. He is no coward. Black Hawk is an 
Indian. 

He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be 
ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, against white 
men who came, year after year, to cheat them, and take away 
their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is 
known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. 
The white men despise the Indians, and drive them from their 
10# 



114 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

homes. They smile in the face of the poor Indian, to cheat 
him ; they shake him by the hand, to gain his confidence, to 
make him drunk, and to deceive him. We told them to let 
us alone, and keep away from us ; but they followed on, and 
beset our paths, and they coiled themselves among us, like the 
snake. They poisoned us by their touch. 

We called a great council, and built a large fire. The spirit 
of our fathers arose and spoke to us to avenge our wrongs or 
die. We set up the war-whoop, and dug up the tomahawk ; 
our knives were ready, and the heart of Black Hawk swelled 
high in his bosom, when he led his warriors to battle. He is 
satisfied. He will go to the world of spirits contented. He 
has done his duty. His father will meet him there, and com- 
mend him. 

Black Hawk is a true Indian, and disdains to cry like a 
woman. He feels for his wife, his children, and his friends. 
But he does not care for himself. He cares for the nation and 
the Indians. They will suffer. He laments their fate. 

Farewell, my nation ! Black Hawk tried to save you, and 
avenge your wrongs. He drank the blood of some of the 
whites. He has been taken prisoner, and his plans are stopped. 
He can do no more ! He is near his end. His sun is setting, 
and he will rise no more. Farewell to Black Hawk ! 



ALPIN'S LAMENT. 

J. MACPHERSON. 

My tears, O Ryno ! are for the dead ; my voice for those 
that have passed away. Tall thou art on the hill ; fair among 
the sons of the vale. But thou shalt fall like Morar; the 
mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no 
more ; thy bow shall lie in the hall, unstrung ! 

Thou wert swift, O Morar ! as a roe on the plain ; terrible 
as a meteor of fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy word 
in battle as lightning in the field ; thy voice was a stream 
after rain ; like thunder on distant hills. Many fell by thy 
arm ; they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But 
when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow ! 
Thy face w^as like the sun after rain ; like the moon in the 
silence of night ; calm as the breast of the lake when the loud 
wind has sunk to repose. 

Narrow is thy dwelling now ! dark the place of thine abode ! 
With three steps I compass thy grave, O thou who wast so 



AND RECITATIONS. 115 

great before ! Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the 
only memorial of thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long grass 
which whistles in the wind, mark to the hunter's eye the grave 
of the mighty Morar. Morar ! thou art low indeed. Thou 
hast no mother to mourn thee ; no maid with her tears of love. 
Dead is she that brought thee forth. Fallen is the daughter 
of Morglan. 

Who on his staff is this ? who is this whose head is white 
with age ? whose eyes are red with tears ? who quakes at 
every step ? It is thy father, O Morar ! the father of no son 
but thee. Weep, thou father of Morar ! weep ; but thy son 
heareth thee not. Deep is the sleep of the dead ; low their 
pillow of dust. No more shall he hear thy voice ; no more 
awake at thy call. 

When shall it be morn in the grave, to bid the slumberer 
awake? Farewell, thou bravest of men! thou conqueror in 
the field ! but the field shall see thee no more ; nor the dark 
wood be lighted with the splendor of thy steel. Thou hast 
left no son. The sOng shall preserve thy name. Future 
times shall hear of thee ; they shall hear of the fallen Morar ! 



IN BEHALF OF STARVING IRELAND. 

S. S. PRENTISS. 

Fellow-citizens : — It is no ordinary cause which has 
brought together this vast assemblage on the present occasion. 
We have met, not to prepare ourselves for political contests, 
nor to celebrate the achievements of those gallant men who 
have planted our victorious standards in the heart of an ene- 
my's country. We have assembled, not to respond to shouts 
of triumph from the west, but to answer the cry of want and 
suffering which comes from the east. The Old World stretches 
out her arms to the New. The starving parent supplicates 
the young and vigorous child for bread. There lies upon the 
other side of the wide Atlantic a beautiful island, famous in 
story and in song. Its area is not so great as that of the 
state of Louisiana, while its population is almost half that of 
the Union. It has given to the world more than its share of 
genius and of greatness. It has been prolific in statesmen, 
warriors and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought 
successfully all battles but their own. In wit and humor it 
has no equal ; while its harp, like its history, moves to tears 
by its sweet but melancholy pathos. Into this fair region God 



116 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

has seen fit to send the most terrible of all those fearful min- 
isters who fulfil his inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed 
to give her increase ; the common mother has forgotten her 
offspring, and her breast no longer affords them their accus- 
tomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has 
seized a nation with its strangling grasp ; and unhappy Ireland, 
in the sad woes of the present, forgets for a moment the 
gloomy history of the past. 

We have assembled, fellow-citizens, to express our sincere 
sympathy for the suflferings of our brethren, and to unite in 
efforts for their alleviation. This is one of those cases in 
which we may, without impiety, assume, as it were, the func- 
tion of Providence. Who knows but what one of the very 
objects of this great calamity is to test the benevolence and 
worthiness of us upon whom unlimited abundance has been 
showered. In the name, then, of common humanity, I invoke 
your aid in behalf of starving Ireland. Give generously and 
freely. EecoUect that in so doing you are exercising one of 
the most God-like qualities of your nature, and at the same 
time enjoying one of the greatest luxuries of life. We ought 
to thank our Maker that he has permitted us to exercise equally 
with himself that noblest of even the Divine attributes, benev- 
olence. Go home and look at your family, smiling in rosy 
health, and then think of the pale, famine-pinched cheeks of 
the poor children of Ireland ; and I know you will give, ac- 
cording to your store, even as a bountiful Providence has given 
to you — not grudgingly, but with an open hand, for the 
quality of benevolence, like that of mercy, 

' ' Is not strained ; 
It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath ; it is twice blessed, — 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes." 



THE FALL OF SWITZERLAND. 



Amidst all the enormities of the French revolution, no one 
circumstance, perhaps, has excited such general sympathy and 
indignation as the fall of Switzerland. With the name of 
Switzerland have been connected, from our earliest years, all 
the worthy feelings of the heart, and all the exquisite beauties 
of nature ; all that the eye of taste or the soul of benevolence 
could require. A race of brave, and happy, and good men 



AND RECITATIONS. 117 

animated her solemn rocks and glens ; the climbing step of 
freedom had scanned the summit of the mountains; the 
unwearied hand of labor had drawn from the barren rock 
sustenance for man ; the peasant, with his plough, and his 
sword, and his book, was at once a tiller of the earth, a 
soldier, and a Christian. Happiness never was more com- 
plete ; imagination could not paint a more enviable lot upon 
earth, or could the earth afford it. For six hundred years 
they had remained firm as their native mountains, amidst all 
the convulsions of Europe ; for two hundred years they had 
hardly drawn the sword, or never drawn it but to conquer. 

Into these hallowed retreats, in the midst of a solemn truce, 
in spite of the strict neutrality observed by the Swiss, and the 
solemn and repeated promises of their own government, burst 
the common enemies of mankind, hot from the carnage, and 
reeking with the blood of other nations. They came to no 
new work of horror ; they had murdered other innocents, and 
pillaged other temples, and wasted other lands. They could 
dye the silvered hair of the aged man with his own blood ; 
they could curse the tears of women, and dash down the 
tender child as it lifted its meek eyes for mercy. 

In the midst of such horrid scenes as these, many actions 
of heroic valor characterized the last days of Switzerland ; 
and she died with her face ever turned to the enemy, slowly 
yielding, and fiercely struggling to the last. - At Oberland, 
an old peasant was observed in arms, fighting amidst his three 
children, and his seven grandchildren; they sustained the 
combat with inconceivable bravery, calling upon each other 
by nam-e, tenderly ; the children thronging about the old man, 
and guarding with their manly limbs the hoary head of their 
parent. They were all murdered ; and in a moment of time, 
this valiant race was blotted from the book of living men ! 

The vengeance which the French took of the Swiss, for 
their determined opposition to the invasion of their country, 
was decisive and terrible. The history of Europe can afford 
no parallel of such cruelty. To dark ages, and the most 
barbarous nations of the East, we must turn in vain. The 
soldiers dispersed over the country, carried fire, and sword, 
and robbery, into the most tranquil and hidden valleys of 
Switzerland. From the depth of sweet retreats, echoed the 
shrieks of murdered men, stabbed in their humble dwellings, 
under the shadow of the high mountains, in the midst of 
those scenes of nature which make solemn and pure the 
secret thought of man, and appal him with the majesty of 
God. The flying peasant saw, in the midst of the night, 



118 



PROSE DECLAMATIONS 



their cottages, their implements of husbandry, and the hopes 
of the future year, expiring- in one cruel conflagration. 

The Swiss was a simple peasant ; the French are a mighty 
people, combined for the regeneration of Europe. Oh, Europe ! 
what dost thou owe to this mighty people ? — dead bodies, 
ruinous heaps, broken hearts, endless confusion, and unutter- 
able woe I By this mighty people, the Swiss have lost their 
country ; that country which they loved so well, that if they 
heard but the simple song of their childhood, tears fell down 
every manly face, and the hearts of intrepid soldiers sobbed 
with grief. 



THE JUDICIARY DEPARTMENT. 

W. E. CHANNING, 

There is one branch of government, which we hold in high 
veneration, which we account an unspeakable blessing, and 
which, for the world, we would not say a word to disparage ; 
and we are the more disposed to speak of it, because its rela- 
tive importance seems to us little understood. We refer to 
the judiciary, a department worth all others in the state. 
Whilst politicians expend their zeal on transient interests, 
which, perhaps, derive their chief importance from their con- 
nection with a party, it is the province of the judge to apply 
those solemn and universal laws of rectitude on which the 
security, industry, and prosperity of the individual and the 
state essentially depend. From his tribunal, as from a sacred 
oracle, go forth the responses of justice. 

To us there is nothing in the whole fabric of civil institu- 
tions so interesting and imposing as this impartial and 
authoritative exposition of the principles of moral legislation. 
The administration of justice in this country, where the judge, 
without a guard, without a soldier, without pomp, decides 
upon the dearest interests of the citizen, trusting chiefly to 
the moral sentiment of the community for the execution of 
his decrees, is the most beautiful and encouraging aspect, 
under which our government can be viewed. We repeat it, 
— there is nothing in public affairs so venerable as the voice 
of justice speaking through her delegated ministers, reaching 
and subduing the high as well as the low, setting a defence 
around the splendid mansion of wealth and the lowly hut of 
poverty, repressing wrong, vindicating innocence, humbling 
the oppressor, and publishing the rights of human nature to 
every human being. 



AND RECITATIONS. 119 

We confess, that we often turn with pain and humiliation 
from the hall of congress, where we see the legislator forget- 
ting the majesty of his function, forgetting his relation to a 
vast and growing community, and sacrificing to his party or 
to himself the public weal ; and it comforts us to turn to the 
court of justice, where the dispenser of the laws, shutting his 
ear against all solicitations of friendship or interest, dissolving 
for a time every private tie, forgetting public opinion, and 
withstanding public feeling, asks only what is right. To our 
courts, the resorts and refuge of w^eakness and innocence, we 
look with hope and joy. We boast, with a virtuous pride, 
that no breath of corruption has as yet tainted their pure air. 
To this department of government, we cannot ascribe too 
much importance. Over this, we cannot watch too jealously. 
Every encroachment on its independence we should resent, 
and repel, as the chief wrong our country can sustain. Woe, 
woe, to the impious hand, which would shake this most sacred 
and precious column of the social edifice I 



IN DEFENCE OF FREEMAN. 

W. H. SEWARD. 

The circumstances under which this trial closes are pecu- 
liar. I have seen capital cases where the parents, brothers, 
sisters, friends of the accused, surrounded him, eagerly hang- 
ing upon the lips of his advocate, and watching, in the 
countenances of the court and jury, every smile and frown 
which might seem to indicate his fate. But there is no such 
scene here. The prisoner, though in the greenness of youth, 
is withered, decayed, senseless, almost lifeless. He has no 
father here. The descendant of slaves, that father died a 
victim to the vices of a superior race. There is no mother 
here, for her child is stained and polluted with the blood of 
mothers and of a sleeping infant; and he "looks and laughs 
so, that she cannot bear to look upon him." There is no 
brother, or sister, or friend here. Popular rage against the 
accused has driven them hence, and scattered his kindred and 
people. 

On the other side, I notice the aged and venerable parents 
of Van Nest, and his surviving children ; and all around are 
mourning and sympathizing friends. I know not at whose 
instance they have come. I dare not say they ought not to 
be here. But I must say to you that we live in a Christian 



120 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

and not in a savage state, and tliat tlie affliction which has 
fallen upon these mourners and us was sent to teach them 
and us mercy, and not retaliation ; that although we send this 
maniac to the scaffold, it will not recall to life the manly form 
of Van Nest, nor reanimate the exhausted frame of that aged 
matron, nor restore to life and grace and beauty the murdered 
mother, nor call back the infant boy from the arms of his 
Saviour. Such a verdict can do no good to the living, and 
carry no joy to the dead. If your judgment shall be swayed 
at all by sympathies so wrong, although so natural, you will 
find the saddest hour of your life to be that in which you will 
look down upon the grave of your victim, and " mourn with 
compunctious sorrow," that you should have done so great 
injustice to the " poor handful of earth that will lie mouldering 
before me." 

I have been long and tedious. I remember that it is the 
harvest moon, and that every hour is precious, while you are 
detained from your yellow fields. But if you shall have 
bestowed patient attention throughout this deeply interesting 
investigation, and shall in the end have discharged your 
duties in the fear of God and in the love of truth, justly and 
independently, you will have laid up a store of blessed recol- 
lections for all your future days, imperishable and inexhausti- 
ble. 



IN DEFENCE OF WIDOW WILKINS. 

C. PHILLIPS. 

I THINK the learned counsel for the plaintiff is mistaken. 
Indeed, I think no twelve men, upon their oaths, will say, 
even admitting the truth of all he asserts, that it was honor- 
able for a British officer to abandon the navy on a hopeless 
speculation; to desert so noble a profession, — to forfeit the 
ambition it ought to have associated, the rank to which it 
leads, the glory it may confer, — for the purpose of extorting 
from an old woman he never saw the purchase-money of his 
degradation ! But I rescue the plaintiff from this disgraceful 
imputation. I cannot believe that a member of a profession, 
no less remarkable for the valor than the generosity of its 
spirit, a profession as proverbial for its profusion in the harbor 
as for the prodigality of its life-blood on the wave, a profession 
ever willing to fling money to the winds, and only anxious 
that they should waft through the world its immortal banner 
crimsoned with the record of a thousand victories ! — no, no, 



AND RECITATIONS. 121 

gentlemen ! notwithstanding the great authority of Mr. An- 
thony Martin, I cannot readily believe that any man could be 
found to make the high honor of this noble service a base, 
mercenary, sullied pander to the blemish of his spotless youth ! 
The fact is, that increasing ill health, and the improbability 
of promotion, combined to induce his retirement on half-pay. 
You will find this confirmed by the date of his resignation, 
which was immediately after the battle of Waterloo — which 
settled, no matter how, the destinies of Europe. His consti- 
tution was declining, his advancement was annihilated, and, 
as a forlorn hope, he bombarded the Widow Wilkins ! 

" War thoughts had left their places vacant ; 
In their room came thronging soft and amorous desires ; 
All telling him how fair young Hero was." 

He first, gentlemen, attacked her fortune, with herself, 
through the artillery of the church ; and having failed in that, 
he now attacks her fortune, without herself, through the assist- 
ance of the law. However, if I am rightly instructed, he has 
nobody but himself to blame for his disappointment. Ob- 
serve, I do not vouch for the authenticity of this fact ; but I 
do certainly assure you, that Mrs. Wilkins was persuaded of 
it. You know the proverbial frailty of our nature. The gal- 
lant lieutenant was not free from it ! Perhaps you imagine 
that some younger, or, according to his taste, some older fair 
one, weaned him from the widow. Indeed, they did not ; — 
he had no heart to lose, and yet — can you solve the paradox? 
— his infirmity was love I As the poet says, 

"Love — still love." 

No, gentlemen, it was not to Venus, it was to Bacchus he 
sacrificed. With an eastern idolatry, he commenced at day- 
light, and so persevering was his piety till the shades of night, 
that, when he was not on his knees, he could scarcely be said 
to be on his legs ! When I came to this passage, I could not 
avoid involuntarily exclaiming, " Peter, Peter ! whether it 
be in liquor or in love, 

' None but thyself can be thy parallel !' " 

I see, by your smiling, gentlemen, that you correct my 
error. I perceive your classic memories recurring to perhaps 
the only prototype to be found in history. I beg his pardon ; 
I should not have overlooked 

" the immortal Captain Wattle, 

Who was all for love, a little — for the bottle." 
11 



122 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

Ardent as our fair ones have been announced to be, they 
do not prefer a flame that is so exclusively spiritual. Widow 
Wilkins, no doubt, did not choose to be singular. In the 
words of the bard — and, my lord, I perceive you excuse my 
dwelling so much on the authority of the muses, because, 
really, on this occasion the minstrel seems to have combined 
the powers of poetry with the spirit of prophecy — in the 
very words of the bard, 

"He asked her, 'Would she- marry him ? ' — Widow Wilkins an- 
swered, ' No.' 

Then, said he, ' I '11 to the ocean rock — I 'm ready for the slaugh- 
ter ! 

O ! I '11 shoot at my sad image, as it 's sighing in the water !' 

Only think of Widow Wilkins' saying, ' Go, Peter, go !' 



THE MODEL REPEAL ORATOR. 

H. MAYHEW. 

How have we been treated for the last ten thousand years 
by the cold-blooded Saxon ? My hair stands on end to tell 
you. Has n't England so managed matters in her own favor 
that she receives the light of the sun two-and-twenty minutes 
before she permits a single ray to come to us ? England may 
boast of her enlightenment; but is this justice to Ireland? I 
have next to accuse England of keeping aloof from us fully 
sixty miles at the nearest point. Talk of our union after that ! 
No, my countrymen, it is only a parchment union, a lying 
thing, made of the skin of the innocent sheep ; but, before we 
go to bed this night, we '11 see that bit of parchment torn into 
countless strips, so that every tailor in Ireland shall have, to- 
morrow morning, a remnant of it in his hands, to measure 
twelve millions of happy Irishmen with. Well, sir, I denounce 
from this place the atrocious cupidity of England, by which 
she monopolizes the tin mines entirely, almost all the iron and 
coal, and thus cramps, sir, our native industry and commerce. 
Why has not Ireland her own iron and coal ? I ask, again, 
why have we no tin ? and no brass ? no zinc ? no salmon ? no 
elephants? no periwinkles ? no king? 

Oh ! my beloved countrymen, I have had a most beautiful 
vision ! I thought I saw every field of Ireland covered with 
dancing corn, and embroidered with the most beautiful sheep, 
whose wool was more exquisite than all the Berlin wool that 
was ever made in England ; and I thought, my countrymen, 
its rivers were filled with more salmon and more periwinkles 



AND RECITATIONS. 



123 



than ever carolled on the muddy Saxon shore ; and I thought, 
my countrymen, that on the brow of every other hill the 
mighty elephant was reposing under the peaceful shade of the 
shamrock ; and again, I thought the corner of each field was 
filled with more iron, and tin, and brass, than would suffice to 
build a railway from here to the bottom of England's perdition; 
and I thought — may the beautiful vision be never effaced 
from the iris of my weeping eyes ! — that there were no dark 
clouds such as now lower o'er our bright country ; but that 
the whole scene, so intensely Irish, was illumined, as if with 
a resplendent sun, with our own gas. Oh ! oh ! when will 
this vision be realized ? When shall we see the poor Irishman 
the finest peasant of the world — boiling his potato? Ah! 
the plundering Saxon cannot wring that from us ; though no 
thanks to the monster for the blight; — boiling his potato, I 
say, with his own coal, in a pot made of his own iron, and eat 
it on a plate made of his own pewter, with a knife bought 
with his own tin. Never ! never ! until the Repeal is carried. 
Do you believe you '11 ever have it ? Believe me, in all sin- 
cerity, you never will, until you pull up the lamp-posts and 
make bayonets of them, and have wrenched off* every knocker 
and bell-pull and melted them into bullets and cannon-balls. 
I know I am talking sedition ; but I dare them to come and. 
tear the shoe-strings out of my boots, before I unsay a single 
word of what I have said. They dare not prosecute me ! It 
would be the proudest moment for Ireland if they would ; for 
then College-green would be crowded with Irish kings. The 
Queen of England would be an Irishman. I should die happy 
in the thought that the majestic tree of Repeal had been 
watered with my blood, and blossomed, and borne such golden 
fruit, that unborn nations, far from beyond the poles, were 
coming on their knees to taste them. 



C^SAR PASSING THE RUBICON. 

J. S. KNOWLES. 

A GENTLEMAN, Speaking of Caesar's benevolent disposition, 
and of the reluctance with which he entered into the civil 
war, observes, " How long did he pause upon the brink of the 
Rubicon?" How came he to the brink of that river? How 
dared he cross it ? Shall a private man respect the bounda- 
ries of private property, and shall a man pay no respect to the 
boundaries of his country's rights ? How dared he cross that 
river? — Oh ! but he paused upon the brink. He should have 



124 * PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

perished on the brink, ere he had crossed it ! Why did he 
pause ? — Why does a man's heart palpitate when he is on the 
point of committing an unlawful deed ? Why does the very 
murderer, his victim sleeping before him, and his glaring eye 
taking the measure of the blow, strike wide of the mortal 
part ? Because of conscience ! 'T was that made Caesar 
pause upon the brink of the Rubicon ! — Compassion ! What 
compassion? The compassion of an assassin, that feels a 
momentary shudder, as his weapon begins to cut ! — Cassar 
paused upon the brink of the Rubicon ! What was the Rubi- 
con ? The boundary of Cassar's province. From what did it 
separate his province ? From his country. Was that country 
a desert ? No ; it was cultivated and fertile, rich and popu- 
lous ! Its sons were men of genius, spirit, and generosity I 
Its daughters were lovely, susceptible, and chaste ! Friend- 
ship was its inhabitant ! Love was its inhabitant ! Domes- 
tic affection was its inhabitant ! Liberty was its inhabitant ! 
All bounded by the stream of the Rubicon! What was 
Csesar, that stood upon the brink of that stream ? A traitor, 
bringing war and pestilence into the heart of that country ! 
No wonder that he paused, — no wonder if, his imagination 
wrought upon by his conscience, he had beheld blood instead 
, of water, and heard groans instead of murmurs ! No wonder 
if some gorgon horror had turned him into stone upon the 
spot ! But, no ! he cried, " The die is cast ! " He plunged ! 
he crossed ! and Rome was free no more ! 



FOR THE YOTE OF CONFIDENCE. 

COMPTE DE MIRABEAU. 

My friends, listen to me a word, a single word! Two 
centuries of depredation and robbery have excavated the abyss 
wherein the kingdom is on the verge of being engulfed. This 
frightful gulf it is indispensable to fill up. Well, here is a 
list of the proprietors. Choose from among the richest, so as 
to sacrifice the smallest number of the citizens. But choose ! 
for is it not expedient that a small number perish to save the 
mass of the people ? Come ! there are two thousand possess- 
ing wherewith to supply the deficit. Restore order to our 
finances, peace and prosperity to the kingdom. Strike, and 
immolate pitilessly these melancholy victims ; precipitate them 
into the abyss ; it is about to close. What! you recoil with 
horror ! Inconsistent, pusillanimous men ! And do you not 
see that in decreeing bankruptcy — or, what is more odious 



AND RECITATIONS. 125 

Still, in rendering it inevitable without decreeing — you dis- 
grace yourselves with an act a thousand times more criminal ; 
for, in fact, that horrible sacrifice would remove the deficiency. 

But do you imagine that because you refuse to pay you shall 
cease to owe ? Do you think the thousands, the millions of 
men, who will lose in an instant, by the dreadful explosion or 
its revulsions, all that constituted the comfort of their lives, 
and perhaps their sole means of subsistence, will leave you in 
the peaceable enjoyment of your crime ? Stoical contempla- 
tors of the incalculable woes which this catastrophe will scatter 
over France ! unfeeling egotists, who think these convulsions 
of despair and wretchedness will pass away like so many 
others, and pass the more rapidly as they will be the more 
violent ! are you quite sure that so many men without bread 
will leave you tranquilly to luxuriate amid the viands which 
you will have been unwilling to curtail in either variety or 
delicacy ? No ! you will perish ! and in the universal confla- 
gration, which you do not tremble to kindle, the loss of your 
honor will not save you a single one of your detestable luxu- 
ries ! 

Vote, then, this extraordinary subsidy, — and may it prove 
sufficient ! Vote it, because the class most interested in the sac- 
rifice which the government demands is you, yourselves ! Vote 
it, because the public exigencies allow of no evasion, and that 
you will be responsible for every delay ! Beware of asking 
time ! — misfortune never grants it. What! gentlemen, in ref- 
erence to a ridiculous movement of the Palais-Royal, a ludi- 
crous insurrection, which had never any consequence except 
in the weak imaginations or the wicked purposes of a few de- 
signing men, you have heard not long since these insane cries : 
Catili7ie is at the gates of Rome, and you deliberate ! And 
assuredly there was around you neither Catiline, nor danger, 
nor factions, nor Rome. But to-day bankruptcy, hideous 
bankruptcy, is there before you ; it threatens to consume you, 
your country, your property, your honor ; — and you delib- 
erate ! 



A VINDICATION OF THE LABORER. 

C. NAYLOR. 

I AM a northern laborer. Ay, sir, it has been my lot to 
have inherited, as my only patrimony, at an early age, noth- 
ing but naked orphanage and utter destitution ; houseless and 
homeless, fatherless and penniless, I was obliged, from that 
11# 



126 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

day forward, to earn my daily bread by my daily labor. And 
now, sir, when I take my seat in this hall, as the free repre- 
sentative of a free people, am I to be sneered at as a northern 
laborer, and degraded into a comparison with the poor, op- 
pressed and suffering negro slave ? Is such the genius and 
spirit of our institutions? If it be, then did our fathers fight, 
and struggle, and die, in vain ! 

But, sir, the gentleman has misconceived the spirit and 
tendency of northern institutions. He is ignorant of northern 
character. He has forgotten the history of his country. 
Preach insurrection to the northern laborers ! Preach insur- 
rection to me ! Who are the northern laborers ? The history 
of your country is their history. The renown of your coun- 
try is their renown. The brightness of their doings is em- 
blazoned on its every page. Blot from your annals the deeds 
and the doings of northern laborers^ and the history of your 
country presents but a universal blank. 

Sir, who was he that disarmed the Thunderer; "wrested 
from his grasp the bolts of Jove ; calmed the troubled ocean ; 
became the central sun of the philosophical system of his age, 
shedding his brightness and effulgence on the whole civilized 
world ; whom the great and mighty of the earth delighted to 
honor ; who participated in the achievement of your indepen- 
dence; prominently assisted in moulding your free institu- 
tutions, and the beneficial effects of whose wisdom will be felt 
to the last moment of " recorded time ?" Who, sir, I ask, was 
he? A northern laborer — a Yankee tallow-chandler's son — 
a printer's runaway boy ! 

And who, let me ask the honorable gentleman, who was he 
that, in the days of our revolution, led forth a northern army 
— yes, an army of northern laborers — and aided the chivalry 
of South Carolina in their defence against British aggression, 
drove the spoilers from their firesides, and redeemed her fair 
fields from foreign invaders ? Who was he ? A northern 
laborer, a Ehode Island blacksmith — the gallant General 
Greene — who left his hammer and his forge, and went forth 
conquering and to conquer in the battle for our independence ! 
And will you preach insurrection to men like these ? 

Sir, our country is full of the achievements of northern 
laborers ! Where is Concord, and Lexington, and Princeton, 
and Trenton, and Saratoga, and Bunker Hill, but in the 
north? And what, sir, has shed an imperishable renown 
on the never-dying names of those hallowed spots, but the 
blood and the struggles, the high daring and patriotism, and 
sublime courage, of northern laborers ? The whole north is 



AND RECITATIONS. 127 

an everlasting monument of the freedom, virtue, intelligence, 
and indomitable independence, of northern laborers ! Go, sir, 
go preach insurrection to men like these I 

The fortitude of the men of the north, under intense suffer- 
ing for liberty's sake, has been almost god-like ! History has 
so recorded it. Who comprised that gallant army, that, vi^ith- 
out food, M^ithout pay, shelterless, shoeless, penniless, and 
almost naked, in that dreadful vv^inter — the midnight of our 
revolution — whose wanderings could be traced by their 
blood-tracks in the snow ; whom no arts could seduce, no ap- 
peal lead astray, no sufferings disaffect ; but who, true to their 
country and its holy cause, continued to fight the good fight 
of liberty, until it finally triumphed ? Who, sir, were these 
men ? Why, northern laborers ! — yes, sir, northern laborers ! 

Who, sir, were Roger Sherman and But it is idle to 

enumerate. To name the northern laborers who have dis- 
tinguished themselves, and illustrated the history of their 
country, would require days of the time of this house. Nor 
is it necessary. Posterity will do them justice. Their deeds 
have been recorded in characters of fire ! 



BRITISH PREDILECTION. 

J. RANDOLPH. 

Against whom are these charges of British predilection 
brought ? Against men, who, in the war of the revolution, 
were in the councils of the nation, or fighting the battles of 
your country. It is insufferable. It cannot be borne. It 
must and ought, with severity, to be put down in this house, 
and out of it to meet the lie direct. We have no fellow-feel- 
ing for the suffering and oppressed Spaniards ! Yet even them 
we do not reprobate. 

Strange ! that we should have no objection to any other 
people or government, civilized or savage, in the whole world ! 
The great autocrat of all the Russias receives the homage of 
our high consideration. The Dey of Algiers and his divan of 
pirates are very civil, good sort of people, with whom we find 
no difficulty in maintaining the relations of peace and amity. 
" Turks, Jews, and Infidels," or the barbarians and savages of 
every clime and color, are welcome to our arms. With chiefs 
of banditti, negro or mulatto, we can treat and can trade. 
Name, however, but England, and all our antipathies are up 
in arms against her. Against whom ? Against those whose 



128 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

"blood runs in our veins ; in common with whom, we claim 
Shakspeare, and Newton, and Chatham, for our countrymen ; 
whose government is the freest on earth, our own only excepted ; 
from whom every valuable principle of our own institutions 
has been borrowed — representation, trial by jury, voting 
the supplies, writ of habeas corpus — our whole civil and 
criminal jurisprudence ; — against our fellow-Protestants, iden- 
tified in blood, in language, in religion, with ourselves ! In 
what school did the worthies of our land, the Washingtons, 
Henrys, Hancocks, Franklins, Rutledges, of America, learn 
those principles of civil liberty which were so nobly asserted 
by their wisdom and valor ? American resistance to British 
usurpation has not been more warmly cherished by these great 
men and their compatriots — not more by Washington, Hancock 
and Henry — than by Chatham and his illustrious associates in 
the British parliament. 

It ought to be remembered, too, that the heart of the Eng- 
lish people was with us. It was a selfish and corrupt minis- 
try, and their servile tools, to whom we were not more opposed 
than they were. I trust that none such may ever exist among 
us ; for tools will never be wanting to subserve the purposes, 
however ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of state. 
I acknowledge the influence of a Shakspeare and a Milton 
upon my imagination, of a Locke upon my understanding, 
of a Sidney upon my political principles, of a Chatham upon 
qualities which, would to God, I possessed in common with 
that illustrious man ! of a Tillotson, a Sherlock, and a Porte us, 
upon my religious principles and convictions ! This is a Brit- 
ish influence which I can never shake off. 



MORE MAY BE MEANT THAN SAID. 

R. CHOATE, 

Sir, I have been exceedingly struck, while listening to gen- 
tlemen, with the fact, that while the ends and objects at which 
they aim are all so pacific, their speeches are strewn and sown 
thick, broad-cast, with so much of the food and nourishment 
of war. Their ends and objects are peace — a treaty of peace ; 
but their means and their topics wear a certain incongruous 
grimness of aspect. The "bloom is on the rye;" but as you 
go near, you see bayonet-points sparkling beneath ; and are 
fired upon by a thousand men in ambush ! The end they aim 
at is peace ; but the means of attaining it are an offensive and 



AND RECITATIOKS. 129 

absurd threat. Their ends and their objects are peace ; yet 
how full have they stuffed the speeches we have been hearing 
with every single topic the best calculated to blow up the 
passions of kindred races to the fever heat of battle ! 

I declare, sir, that while listening to senators whose sincerity 
and patriotism I cannot doubt, and to this conflict of topics and 
objects with which they half bewilder me, I was forcibly re- 
minded of that consummate oration in the streets of Rome, 
by one who " came to bury Ceesar, not to praise him." He did 
not wish to stir up anybody to mutiny and rage ! 0, no ! He 
would not have a finger lifted against the murderers of his 
and the people's friend — not he! He feared he wronged 
them ; yet who has not admired the exquisite address and the 
irresistible effect with which he returns again and again to 
" sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths," and put a 
tongue in each — to the familiar mantle, first worn on the 
evening of the day his great friend overcame the Nervii, now 
pierced by the cursed steel of Cassius, of the envious Casca, 
of the well-beloved Brutus — to his legacy of drachmas, arbors, 
and orchards, to the people of Rome, whose friend, whose 
benefactor, he shows to them, all marred by traitors, till the 
mob break away from his words of more than fire, with — 

" We will be revenged ! — Revenge ! About ! 
Seek — burn — fire — kill — slay ! — let not a traitor live ! ' ' 

Antony was insincere. Senators are wholly sincere. Yet the 
contrast between their pacific professions and that revelry of 
belligerent topics and sentiments which rings and flashes in their 
speeches here, half suggests a doubt to me, sometimes, whether 
they or I perfectly know what they mean or what they desire. 
They promise to show you a garden, and you look up to see 
nothing but a wall " with dreadful faces thronged, and fiery 
arms ! " They propose to teach you how peace is to be preserved ; 
and they do it so exquisitely, that you go away half inclined to 
issue letters of marque and reprisal to-morrow morning. 

The proposition is peace ; but the audience rises and goes 
off with a sort of bewildered and unpleasing sensation, that if 
there were a thousand men in all America as well disposed as 
the orator, peace might be preserved ; but that, as the case 
stands, it is just about hopeless ! I ascribe it altogether to their 
anxious and tender concern for peace, that senators have not 
a word to say about the good she does, but only about the 
dangers she is in. They have the love of compassion ; not 
the love of desire. Not a word about the countless blessings 
she scatters from her golden urn ; but only " the pity of it, 



130 



PROSE DECLAMATIONS 



lago ! the pity of it !" to think how soon the dissonant clang-or 
of a thousand brazen throats may chase that bloom from her 
cheek, 

" And death's pale flag be quick advanced there." 

Sir, no one here can say one thing, and mean another ; yet 
much may be meant, and nothing directly said. " The dial 
spoke not, but pointed full upon the stroke of murder." 



THE FEDERAL UNION. 

D. WEBSTEK. 



I PROFESS, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily 
in view the prosperity and the honor of the whole country, 
and the preservation of our Federal Union. I have not allowed 
myself to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden 
in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the 
chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us 
together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed 
myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, 
with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss 
below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the 
affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly 
bent on considering, not how the Union should be preserved, 
but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when 
it shall be broken up and destroyed. 

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying 
prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Be- 
yond that, I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant, that, 
in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise ! God gTant, 
that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind ! 
When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, 
the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken 
and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on states 
dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil 
feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their 
last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous 
ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout 
the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies 
streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or pol- 
luted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such 
miserable interrogatory as What is all this worth ? — nor 
those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty firsts and 



AND RECITATIONS. 



131 



union afterwards ; but everywhere spread all over in charac- 
ters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float 
over the sea, and over the land, and in every wind under the 
whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true Amer- 
ican heart: — Liberty and Union, now and forever, one 

AND inseparable. 



THE STABILITY OF OUR GOVERNMENT. 

C. SPKAGUE. 

If there be on the earth one nation more than another, 
whose institutions must draw their life-blood from the indi- 
vidual purity of its citizens, that nation is our own. Rulers 
by divine right, and nobles by hereditary succession, may, 
perhaps, tolerate with impunity those depraving indulgences 
which keep the great mass abject. Where the many enjoy 
little or no power, it were a trick of policy to wink at 
those enervating vices, which would rob them of both the 
ability and the inclination to enjoy it. But in our country, 
where almost every man, however humble, bears to the omnip- 
otent ballot-box his full portion of the sovereignty — where at 
regular periods the ministers of authority, who went forth to 
rule, return to be ruled, and lay down their dignities at the 
feet of the monarch multitude — where, in short, public sen- 
timent is the absolute lever that moves the political world, the 
purity of the people is the rock of political safety. 

We may boast, if we please, of our exalted privileges, and 
fondly imagine that they will be eternal ; but whenever those 
vices shall abound, which undeniably tend to debasement, 
steeping the poor and ignorant still lower in poverty and 
ignorance, and thereby destroying that wholesome mental 
equality which can alone sustain a self-ruled people, it will 
be found, by woful experience, that our happy system of gov- 
ernment, the best ever devised for the intelligent and good, is 
the very worst to be intrusted to the degraded and vicious. 
The great majority will then truly beconie a many-headed 
monster, to be tamed and led at will. The tremendous power 
of suffrage, like the strength of the eyeless Nazarite, so far 
from being their protection, will but serve to pull down upon 
their heads the temple their ancestors reared for them. Cabal- 
lers and demagogues will find it an easy task to delude those 
who have deluded themselves ; and the freedom of the 
people 'will finally be buried in the grave of their virtues. 
National greatness may survive ; splendid talents and bril- 



132 , PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

liant victories may fling their delusive lustre abroad ; — these 
can illumine the darkness that hangs round the throne of a 
despot; but their Hght will be like the baleful flame that 
hovers over decaying mortality, and tells of the corruption 
that festers beneath. The immortal spirit will have gone ; 
and along our shores, and among our hills, — those shores 
made sacred by the sepulchre of the pilgrim, those hills hal- 
lowed by the uncoffined bones of the patriot, — even there, in 
the ears of their degenerate descendants, shall ring the last 
knell of departed Liberty ! 



VIRGINIA AND MASSACHUSETTS.* 

J. MC DOWELL. 

Mr. Chairman, — When I pass by the collective parties in 
this case, and recall the particular ones : when I see that my 
own state is as deeply implicated in the trouble and the dan- 
ger of it as any other, and shares, to the full, with all of 
her southern colleagues, in the most painful apprehensions of 
its issue ; when I see this, I turn involuntarily, and with 
unaffected deference of spirit, and ask, What, in this exigent 
moment to Virginia, will Massachusetts do ? Will you, too, 
(I speak to her as present in her representatives) — will you, 
too, forgetting all the past, put forth a hand to smite her igno- 
miniously upon the cheek ? In your own early day of deepest 
extremity and distress — the day of the Boston Port Bill — 
when your beautiful capital was threatened with extinction, 
and England was collecting her gigantic power to sweep your 
liberties away, Virginia, caring for no odds and counting no 
cost, bravely, generously, instantly, stepped forth for your 
deliverance. Addressing her through the justice of your 
cause and the agonies of your condition, you asked for her 
heart. She gave it ; with scarce the reservation of a throb, she 
gave it freely and gave it all. You called upon her for her 
blood ; — she took her children from her bosom, and offered 
them to supply it with her spirit, with appreciation of the 
great principles of representation and of popular government 
which your cause involved ; and with her holy enthusiasm in 
their support, Virginia would have been utterly recreant to 
herself if she had done anything else, or anything less, than 
she did. 

But in all this she felt and knew that she was more than 
your political ally — more than your political friend. She 
felt and knew that she was your near, natural born relation — 

* Extracted from a speech delivered Feb. 23, 1849, on a bill to establish a 
territorial government for Upper California. 



AND RECITATIONS. 133 

such in virtue of your common descent, but such far more 
still in virtue as the higher attributes of a congenial and 
kindred nature. Do not be startled at the idea of common 
qualities betw^een the American Cavalier and the American 
Roundhead. A heroic and unconquerable will, differently 
directed, is the pervasive and master cement in the character 
of both. Nourished by the same spirit, sharing as twin-sisters 
in the struggle of the heritage of the same revolution, what 
is there in any demand of national faith, or of constitutional 
duty, or of public morals, which should separate them now ? 
What is there in these grounds — the sound and the true 
grounds of national conduct — that should induce Massachu- 
setts to disavow the rights, to disown the equality, disdain 
the remonstrance, or scorn the feelings and the honor, of her 
best, her strongest, and her earliest friend ? 

Gentlemen, representatives of Massachusetts ! What say 
you ? Are you agreed ? Your equals before the revolution 
began — your equals when it did begin — confederated as your 
equals in 1777 — united as such in 1787 — cooperating with 
you as equals in the administration of our common country 
from the declaration of independence to the present hour, and, 
so confederated, united and cooperating with you with all the 
local rights and institutions which are objected to us now — ■ 
are you agreed that what we were, and are, and ought to be, 
and must be, we shall always continue to be, — your equals — 
inviolably your equals still ? Are you agreed to this ? If so, 
then, in the sight of heaven and man, we shall renew this 
day a compact, not of peace only — no, no ! not only of 
peace, grateful as that alone would be — but a compact of 
immortality for our country ! 

Give us but a part of that devotion which glowed in the 
heart of the younger Pitt, and of our own elder Adams, who, 
in the midst of their agonies, forgot not the countries they 
had lived for, but mingled with the spasms of their dying 
hour a last and imploring appeal to the parent of all mercies, 
that he would remember, in eternal blessings, the land of their 
birth ; give us their devotion — give us that of the young 
enthusiast of Paris, who, listening to Mirabeau in one of his 
surpassing vindications of human rights, and seeing him fall 
from his stand, dying, as a physician proclaimed, for the want 
of blood, rushed to the spot, and as he bent over the expiring 
man, bared his arm for the lancet, and cried again and again, 
with impassioned voice — *' Here, take it — oh ! take it from 
me ! let me die, so that Mirabeau and the liberties of my 
country may not perish ! " Give us something only of such 
12 



134 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

a love of country, and we are safe, forever safe : the troubles 
which shadow over and oppress us now will pass away like a 
summer cloud. The fatal element of all our discord will be 
removed from among us. Let gentlemen be adjured by the 
weal of this and coming ages, by our own and our chil- 
dren's good, by all that we love or that we look for in the 
progress and the glories of our land, to leave the entire sub- 
ject of slavery, with every accountability it may impose, 
every remedy it may require, every accumulation of difficulty 
or degree of pressure it may reach — to leave it all to the 
interest, to the wisdom, and to the conscience, of those upon 
whom the providence of God and the constitution of their 
country have cast it. Leave it to them, noiJO aiid forever, and 
stop, whilst it is yet possible to stop, the furious and blind 
headway of that wild and mad philanthropy, which is light- 
ing up for the nation itself the fires of the stake, and which 
is rushing, stride after stride, to an intestine struggle that may 
bury us all under a harder, and wickeder, and more incurable 
slavery, than any it would extinguish ! 

It is said, sir, that at some dark hour of our revolutionary 
contest, when army after army had been lost ; when, dispirited, 
beaten, wretched, the heart of the boldest and faithfulest died 
within them, and all, for an instant, seemed conquered, except 
the unconquerable soul of our father-chief, — it is said that at 
that moment, rising above all the auguries around him, and 
buoyed up by the inspiration of his immortal work for all the 
trials it could bring, he aroused anew the sunken spirit of his 
associates by this confident and daring declaration : — " Strip 
me (said he) of the dejected and suffering remnant of my 
army — take from me all that I have left — leave me but a 
banner, give me but the means to plant it upon the mountains 
of West Augusta, and I will yet draw around me the men 
who shall lift up their bleeding country from the dust, and set 
her free ! " Give to me, who am a son and representative here 
of the same West Augusta, give to me as a banner the pro- 
pitious measure I have endeavored to support, help me to 
plant it upon this mountain top of our national power, and 
the land of Washington, undivided and unbroken, will be our 
land, and the land of our children's children forever ! So 
help me to do this at this hour, and, generations hence, some 
future son of the south, standing where I stand, in the midst 
of our legitimate successors, will bless, and praise, and thank 
God that he, too, can say of them, as I of you, and of all 
around me — these, these are my brethren, and Oh I this, this 

TOO, IS MY COUNTRY ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 135 

REPLY TO MR. McDOWELL. 

J. &. PALFREY. 

Mr. Chairman, — Three days ago, I listened to another 
strain from the Ancient Dominion,' with the delight which 
such graceful eloquence has the power to give, and certainly 
not without my share of the emotion which was stirred in 
every hearer. I trust that it was not a mere transient pleas- 
ure, but that I was warmed with something of the patriotic 
spirit which he so powerfully exhorted us to cultivate So 
far as that effect was produced, I shall be only the better quali- 
fied to sustain those views of the public well-being and honor 
of which I have occasionally come forward here as the very 
humble advocate. Admiring the elevated and generous tone 
of many of that gentleman's remarks, there were yet some 
things I could have wished otherwise — independent of his 
argument on the particular question now in hand, which, of 
course, did not satisfy me. 

The gentlemen thinks that Virginia laid Massachusetts 
under an obligation of gratitude and affection by her sympa- 
thy and aid in the disastrous time of the Boston Port Bill. I 
think she did, and that the debt is mutual, at least. Does 
the gentleman suppose that the distresses incurred by Massa- 
chusetts, at the period of which he speaks, were solely for 
objects of her own or that the exertions made by Virginia and 
others of her sister colonies, — whether regarded as made in 
her behalf, or for the common cause, for which she was stand- 
ing the foremost champion, — were anything more than miti- 
gations of her woe ? When James Otis argued in the old 
State House against the Writs of Assistance, and " then and 
there," according to John Adams, " the child Independence 
was born," for whom was that birth, — for Massachusetts or for 
America ? When, from her Faneuil Hall, and the meetings 
of her village democracies, the gauntlet was thrown down to 
the tremendous power of England, was Massachusetts alone 
in the prospect of advantage from that strife, or only most for- 
ward in its perils? When the vindictive "Port Bill," to 
which the gentleman referred, took effect, was it some Virgin- 
ian city, or was it Boston, the chief mart of the continent, 
that saw its prosperity made desolation, and the grass spring- 
ing in its streets ? And if Massachusetts did incur a debt for 
the sympathy and succors which, as the gentleman correctly 
states, she then received, I think she paid some instalments 
of it when she bore the first furious brunt of the battle on her 



136 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

own soil — when she sent nearly one soldier in every three to 
the armies of the revolution, and when the excess of her pay- 
ments into the common treasury, for the prosecution of the 
war, over and above what she drew from it, was greater than 
that of the aggregate of her twelve sister states. 

But, sir, when the gentleman, calling up affecting reminis- 
cences of the past, appealed to us of Massachusetts to be faith- 
ful to the obligations of patriotism, I repeat that I trust his 
language fell profitably as well as pleasantly on my ear. He 
has reminded us of our stern but constant ancestry. I hope 
we shall be true to their great mission for Freedom and Right, 
and all the more true for having listened to his own impres- 
sive exhortation. The gentleman remembers the declaration 
of Hume, that " it was to the Puritans that the people of Eng- 
land owed its liberties." May their race never desert that 
work, as long as any of it is left to do ! Sir, as I come of a 
morning to my duties here, I am apt to stop before the picture 
in your rotunda, of the departure from Delft Haven of that 
vessel, " freighted with the best hopes of the world," and re- 
fresh myself by looking in the faces of four ancestors of my 
own, depicted by the limner in the group on that dismal deck 
— the brave and prudent leader of the company, his head and 
knee bowed in prayer, — his faithful partner, blending in her 
mild but care-worn countenance the expression of the wife, 
the parent, the exile and the saint, — the young maiden and 
the youth, going out to the wide sea and the wide world, but 
already trained to masculine endurance and " perfect peace," 
by the precious faith of Christ. Not more steadfast than those 
forlorn wanderers were the men, who, in the tapestried cham- 
bers of England's great sway, with stout sword on thigh, and 
a stouter faith in the heart, and the ragged flags of Cressy, 
and Agincourt, and the Armada, above their heads, 

*' Sat, with Bibles open, around the council board, 

And answered a king's missive with a stern, ' Thus saith the Lord.' " 

Not hardier were they, who, in the iron squadrons of Fairfax 
and Cromwell, had many a hard trot, on many a hot and 
dusty day, to get so much as a sight of the backs of those silk 
and velvet cavaliers, of whom the eloquent gentleman dis- 
coursed with so much unction. 

Sir, the spirit of that stubborn race, if somewhat softened 
by the change in manners and the lapse of time, is not yet 
extinct in their children. The gentleman is welcome, for me, 
to have very little respect for any who, in his language, have 



AND RECITATIONS. 



137 



" made capital" of one kind or another out of human slavery. 
But I ask him, did the Roundhead ever flinch when battle 
was to be done for freedom ? Sir, I live in the midst of the 
scenes of his last bloody struggle for that cause. Humble as 
I am, I am honored to represent the men who till the earliest 
battle-fields of American Independence. As 1 sit in my door, 
of a still summer evening, I hear the bells from Lexington 
Common. The shaft over the sacred ashes of Bunker Hill 
rises within three miles of my windows. I leave my home, 
and in an hour I stand by the ruined abutments of old Con- 
cord bridge, and the green graves of the first two British vic- 
tims in the hecatombs of the revolution. Representing, how- 
ever feebly, such a people, in lineage and in office — warned 
by the lessons and the present monuments of such a history — 
is it for me to think of helping to extend the foul curse of 
slavery over another foot of God's fair earth ? No ; " here I 
stand ; I can do no otherwise ; may God help me." I boast 
no courage ; I fear I might turn out to be no better than a 
fearful man ; but I do trust that every drop of thin blood in 
these old veins of mine would be freely given to stain the 
scaffold, or boil and bubble at the stake, before, by any act of 
my doing, the slavery of my brother man should take another 
forward step on free American soil ! 



VALUE OF PUBLIC FAITH. 

F. AMES. 

To expatiate on the value of public faith may pass with 
some men for declamation ; to such men, I have nothing to 
say. To others, I will urge — can any circumstances mark 
upon a people, more turpitude and debasement ? Can any- , 
thing tend more to make men think themselves mean, or 
degrade to a lower point their estimation of virtue and their 
standard of action ? It would not merely demoralize man- 
kind ; it tends to break all the ligaments of society, to dissolve 
that mysterious charm which attracts individuals to the nation, 
and to inspire in its stead a repulsive sense of shame and 
disgust. 

What is patriotism ? Is it a narrow affection for the spot 
where a man was bom ? Are the very clods where we tread 
entitled to this ardent preference, because they are greener ? 
No, sir ; this is not the character of the virtue ; — it soars 
higher for its object. It is an extended self-love, mingling 
with all the enjoyments of life, and entwining itself with the 
12# 



138 PROSE DECLAMATIONS 

minutest filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws 
of society, because they are the laws of virtue. In their 
authority we see, not the array of force and terror, but the 
venerable image of our country's honor. Every good citizen 
makes that honor his own, and cherishes it, not only as 
precious, but as sacred. He is willing to risk life in its 
defence, and is conscious that he gains protection while he 
gives it. For what rights of a citizen will be deemed invio- 
lable when a state renounces the principles that constitute 
their security ? Or, if this life should not be invaded, what 
would its enjoyments be, in a country odious in the eyes of 
strangers and dishonored in his own ? Could he look with 
affection and veneration to such a country as his parent ? 
The sense of having one would die within him ; he would 
blush for his patriotism, if he retained any, and justly, for it 
would be a vice. He would be a banished man in his native 
land. 



THE FUTURE AGE OF LITERATURE. 

H. BUSHNELL. 

I BELIEVE in a future age, yet to be revealed, which is to 
be distinguished from all others as the godlike age, — an age 
not of universal education simply, or universal philanthropy, 
or external freedom, or political well-being, but a day of 
reciprocity and free intimacy between all souls and God. 
Learning and religion, the scholar and the Christian, will not 
be divided as they have been. The universities will be filled 
with a profound spirit of religion, and the bene ordsse will be 
a fountain of inspiration to all the investigations of study and 
the creations of genius. And it will be found that Christian- 
ity has, at last, developed a new literary era, — the era of 
religious love. 

Hitherto, the love of passion has been the central fire of 
the world's literature. The dramas, epics, odes, novels, and 
even histories, have spoken to the world's heart chiefly 
through this passion, and through this have been able to get 
their answer. Hence there gathers round the lover a tragic 
interest, and we hang upon his destiny as if some natural 
charm or spell were in it. But this passion of love, which 
has hitherto been the staple of literature, is only a crude 
symbol in the life of nature, by which God designs to inter- 
pret, and also to foreshadow, the higher love of religion, — 
Nature's gentle Beatrice, who leaves her image in the youth- 



AND RECITATIONS. 



139 



fill Dante, and is therefore to attend him afterwards in the 
spirit flight of song, and be his guide upward through the 
wards of Paradise to the shining mount of God. What, then, 
are we to think but that he wifl some time bring us up out 
of the literature of the lower love, into that of the higher ; 
that as the age of passion yields, at last, to the age of reason, 
so the crude love of instinct shall 'give place to the pure intel- 
lectual love of God ? And, then, around that nobler love, or 
out of it, shall arise a new body of literature, as much more 
gifted as the inspiration is purer and more intellectual. 
Beauty, truth and worship, song, science and duty, will all 
be unfolded together in the common love of God. 

Society must, of course, receive beauty into its character 
and feeling, such as can be satisfied no longer with the old 
barbaric themes of war and passion. To be a scholar and not 
to be a Christian, to produce the fruits of genius without a 
Christian inspiration, will no longer be thought of; and reli- 
gion, heretofore looked upon as a ghostly constraint upon life, 
it will now be acknowledged, is the only sufficient fertilizer 
of genius, as it is the only real emancipator of man. 



THE AGE OF HUMANITY. 

C. SUMNER. 

The grand fundamental law of humanity is the good of the 
whole human family, — its happiness, its development, its pro- 
gress. In this cause, knowledge, jurisprudence, art, philan- 
thropy, all concur. They are the influences, more puissant 
than the sword, which shall lead mankind from the bondage 
of error into that service which is perfect freedom. 

" Hae tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere moremy* 

Our departed brothers join in sumn;ioning you to this glad- 
some obedience. Their examples speak for them. Go 
forth into the many mansions of the house of life ; scholars ! 
store them with learning ; jurists ! build them with justice : 
artists ! adorn them with beauty ; philanthropists ! let them 
resound with love. Be servants of truth and duty, each in 
his vocation. Be sincere, pure in heart, earnest, enthusiastic. 
A virtuous enthusiasm is always self-forgetful and noble. It 
is the only inspiration now vouchsafed to man. Blend humil- 

* Literally, " These shall be arts for you, and to impose the manner of 
peace." 



140 PROSE DECLABIATIONS AND RECITATIONS. 

ity with learning. Ascend above the present in place and 
time. Regard fame only as the eternal shadow of excellence. 
Bend in adoration before the right. Cultivate alike the wis- 
dom of experience and the wisdom of hope. Mindful of the 
future, do not neglect the past ; awed by the majesty of 
antiquity, turn not with indifference from the future. True 
wisdom looks to the ages before us, as well as behind us. 
Like the Janus of the Capitol, one front thoughtfully regards 
the past, rich with experience, Avith memories, with the price- 
less traditions of truth and virtue ; the other is earnestly 
directed to the all hail hereafter, richer still with its transcen- 
dent hopes and unfulfilled prophecies. 

We stand on the threshold of a new age, which is preparing 
to recognize new influences. The ancient divinities of vio- 
lence and wrong are retreating to their kindred darkness. 
The sun of our moral universe is entering a new ecliptic, no 
longer deformed by images of animal rage, but beaming with 
the mild radiance of those heavenly signs, Faith, Hope, and 
Charity. The age of chivalry has gone. An age of humanity 
has come. The horse, which gave the name to the first, now 
yields to man the foremost place. In serving him, in doing 
him good, in contributing to his welfare and elevation, there 
are fields of bloodless triumph, nobler far than any in which 
warriors ever conquered. Here are spaces of labor wide as 
the world, lofty as heaven. Let me say, then, in the benison 
which was bestowed upon the youthful knight, — Scholars ! 
jurists I artists ! philanthropists ! heroes of a Christian age, 
companions of a celestial knighthood, " Go forth, be brave, 
loyal, and successful ! " 

And may it be our office to-day to light a fresh beacon-fire 
on these venerable walls, sacred to truth, to Christ, and the 
church,^ — to truth immortal, to Christ the comforter, to the 
holy church universal. Let the flame spread from steeple to 
steeple, from hill to hill, from island to island, from continent 
to continent, till the long lineage of fires shall illumine all the 
nations of the earth, animating them to the holy contests of 
Knowledge, Justice, 'Beauty, Love. 

* The legend on the early seal of Harvard University was Veritas. The 
present legend is Chvisto et Ecclesice. 



POETICAL 

DECLAMATIONS AND RECITATIONS, 



MY FATHER'S AT THE HELM. 

ANONYMOUS. 

The curling waves, with awful roar, 

A little bark assailed, 
And pallid Fear's distracting power 

O'er all on board prevailed, — 

Save one, the captain's darling child, 
Who steadfast viewed the storm ; 

And, cheerful, with composure smiled 
At danger's threatening form. 

" And sport'st thou thus," a seaman cried, 
"While terrors overwhelm?" — 

" Why should 1 fear ? " the boy replied ; 
" My father 's at the helm ! " 

So when our worldly all is reft, 

Our earthly helpers gone, 
We still have one sure anchor left, — 

God helps, and he alone. 

He to our prayers will lend his ear, 

He give our pangs relief ; 
He turn to smiles each trembling tear. 

To joy each torturing grief. 

Then turn to him, mid sorrows wild, 
When wants and woes o'erwhelm. 

Remembering, like the fearless child, 
Our Father 's at the helm I 



142 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

"PRESS ON." 

p. BENJAMIN, 

Press on ! there 's no such word as fail ! 

Press nohly on ! the goal is near ; 
Ascend the mountain ! breast the gale ! 

Look upward, onward — never fear ! 
Why should'st thou faint ? Heaven smiles above, 

Though storm and vapor intervene ; 
That sun shines on, whose name is Love, 

Serenely o'er life's shadowed scene. 

Press on ! surmount the rocky steeps, 

Climb boldly o'er the torrent's arch ; 
He fails alone who feebly creeps ; 

He wins, who dares the hero's march. 
Be thou a hero ! let thy might 

Tramp on eternal snows its way. 
And through the ebon walls of Night, 

Hew down a passage unto day. 

Press on ! if Fortune play thee false. 

To-day, to-morrow she '11 be true ; 
Whom now she sinks she now exalts, 

Taking old gifts and granting new. 
The wisdom of the present hour 

Makes up for folHes past and gone ; 
To weakness strength succeeds, and power 

From frailty springs — press on ! press on ! 

Therefore press on ! and reach the goal, 

And gain the prize, and wear the crown ; 
Faint not ! for to the steadfast soul 

Come wealth, and honor, and renown. 
To thine own self be true, and keep 

Thy mind from sloth, thy heart from soil ; 
Press on ! and thou shalt surely reap 

A heavenly harvest for thy toil ! 



THE YOUNG SOLDIER. 

J. G. ADAMS. 

A SOLDIER ! a soldier ! 

I 'm longing to be ; 
The name and the life 

Of a soldier for me ! 



AND KECITATIONS. 

I would not be living 

At ease and at play ; 
True honor and glory 

I 'd win in my day ! 

A soldier ! a soldier ! 

In armor arrayed ; 
My weapons in hand, 

Of no contest afraid ; 
I 'd ever be ready 

To strike the first blow, 
And to fight my good way 

Through the ranks of the foe. 

But then, let me tell you, 

No blood would I shed, 
No victory seek o'er 

The dying and dead ; 
A far braver soldier 

Than this would I be ; 
A warrior of Truth, 

In the ranks of the free ! 

A soldier ! a soldier ! 

O, then, let me be ! 
Young friends, I invite you — 

Enlist now with me. 
Truth's bands will be mustered 

Love's foes shall give way ! 
Let 's up, and be clad 

In our battle array ! 



143 



THE POWER OF ART. 

C. SPRAGUE. 

When, from the sacred garden driven, 

Man fled before his Maker's wrath. 
An angel left her place in heaven, 

And crossed the wanderer's sunless path. 
'T was Art ! sweet Art ! new radiance broke 

Where her light foot flew o'er the ground ; 
And thus with seraph voice she spoke, — 

" The curse a blessing shall be found." 



144 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

She led him through the trackless wild, 

Where noontide sunbeams never blazed ; 
The thistle shrank, the harvest smiled. 

And nature gladdened, as she gazed. 
Earth's thousand tribes of living things, 

At Art's command, to him are given ; 
The village grows, the city springs. 

And point thefir spires of faith to heaven. 

He rends the oak, and bids it ride. 

To guard the shores its beauty graced ; 
He smites the rock, upheaved in pride, — 

See towers of strength and domes of taste ! 
Earth's teeming caves their wealth reveal, 

Fire bears his banner on the wave, — 
He bids the mortal poison heal. 

And leaps triumphant o'er the grave. 

He plucks the pearls that stud the deep, 

Admiring beauty's lap to fill ; 
He breaks the stubborn marble's sleep, 

And mocks his own Creator's skill. 
With thoughts that fill his glowing soul. 

He bids the ore illume the page ; 
And, proudly scorning Time's control, 

Commerces with an unborn age. 

In fields of air he writes his name, 

And treads the chambers of the sky ; 
He reads the stars, and grasps the flame 

That quivers round the Throne on high. 
In war renowned, in peace sublime. 

He moves in greatness and in grace ; 
His power, subduing space and time, 

Links realm to realm, and race to race. 



WASHINGTON'S REMAINS. 



Ah ! leave him alone to sleep forever, 

Till the strong archangel calls for the dead. 

By the verdant bank of that rushing river. 
Where first they pillowed his mighty head ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 145 

Lonely may be the turf that covers 

The sacred grave of his last repose ; 
But, ah ! there 's a glory that round it hovers, 

Broad as the day-break, and bright as its close. 

Though marble pillars were reared above him, 
Temples and obelisks, rich and rare — 

Better he dwells in the hearts that love him, 
Cold and lone as he slumbers there. 

Why should ye gather with choral numbers ? 

Why should your thronging thousand come ? 
Who will dare to invade his slumbers. 

Or bear him away from his narrow home ? 

Well he sleeps, in solemn majesty. 

Silent and stern, of awful death ! 
And he who visits him there should be 

Alone with God, and his own hushed breath. 

Eevel and pomp would profane his ashes ; 

And may never a sound be murmured there, 
Save the glorious river that by him dashes. 

And the pilgrim's voice in his heartfelt prayer ! 

Yea, — leave him alone ! — To sleep forever ! 

'Till the trump that wakes the countless dead. 
By the verdant bank of that rushing river, 

Where first they pillowed his mighty head. 



DAVID'S LAMENT FOR ABSALOM. 

N. P. WILLIS. 

The king stood still 
Till the last echo died; then, throwing off 
The sackcloth from his brow, and laying back 
The pall from the still features of his child. 
He bowed his head upon him, and broke forth 
In the resistless eloquence of woe : 

" Alas ! my noble boy ! that thou shouldst die ! 

Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair ! 
That death should settle in thy glorious eye, 

And leave his stillness in this clustering hair ! 
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb. 
My proud boy, Absalom ! 
13 



146 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

" Cold is thy brow, my son ! and I am chill, 
As to my bosom I have tried to press thee ! 

How ^vas I wont to feel my pulses thrill. 

Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, 

And hear thy sweet ' my father ! ' from those dumb 
And cold lips, Absalom ! 

" But death is on thee ! I shall hear the gush 
Of music, and the voices of the young ; 

And life will pass me in the mantling blush, 

And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung ; — 

But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come, 
To meet me, Absalom ! 

" And oh ! when I am stricken, and my heart, 
Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, 

How will its love for thee, as I depart. 

Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token ! 

It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom, 
To see thee, Absalom ! 

" And now, farewell ! 'T is hard to give thee up, 
With death so like a gentle slumber on thee ! — 

And thy dark sin ! — oh ! I could drink the cup, 
If from this woe its bitterness had won thee. 

May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home. 
My lost boy, Absalom ! " 

He covered up his face, and bowed himself 
A moment on his child ; then, giving him 
A look of melting tenderness, he clasped 
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer. 
And, as if strength were given him of God, 
He rose up calmly, and composed the pall 
Firmly and decently — and left him there, 
As if his rest had been a breathing sleep. 



ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN. 

B. W. PROCTOR, 

O thou vast Ocean ! ever-sounding sea ! 
Thou symbol of a drear immensity ! 
Thou thing, that windest round the solid world 
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled 



AND RECITATIONS. 147 

From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone, 

Lashing, and writhing, till its strength be gone, 

Thy voice is like the thunder ; and thy sleep 

Is like a giant's slumber, loud and deep. 

Thou speakest in the east and in the west 

At once ; and on thy heavily laden breast 

Fleets come and go, and shapes, that have no life 

Or motion, yet are moved and meet in strife. 

The earth hath nought of this ; nor chance nor change 

Ruffles its surface ; and no spirits dare 

Give answer to the tempest-waken air ; 

But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range 

At will, and wound his bosom as they go. 

Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow ; 

But in their stated round the seasons com^e 

And pass like visions to their viewless home, 

And come again, and vanish : the young spring 

Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming. 

And winter always winds his sullen horn, 

And the wild autumn, with a look forlorn. 

Dies in his stormy manhood ; and the skies 

Weep, and flowers sicken when the summer flies. 

Thou only, terrible Ocean, hast a power, 

A will, a voice ; and in thy wrathful hour. 

When thou dost lift thine anger to the clouds, 

A fearful and magnificent beauty shrouds 

Thy broad green forehead. If thy waves be driven 

Backwards and forwards by the shifting wind, 

How quickly dost thou thy great strength unbind. 

And stretch thine arms, and war at once with heaven ! 

Oh ! wonderful thou art, great element : 

And fearful in thy spleeny humors bent, 

And lovely in repose : thy summer form 

Is beautiful ; and when thy silver waves 

Make music in earth's dark and winding caves, 

I love to wander on thy pebbled beach. 

Marking the sunlight at the evening hour, 

And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach, — 

" Eternity, Eternity, and power." 



148 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

A FAREWELL TO AMERICA. 

R. H. WILDE. 

Farewell ! my more than fatherland ! 

Home of my heart and friends, adieu ! 
Lingering beside some foreign strand, 

How oft shall I remember you ! 

How often, o'er the waters blue, 
Send back a sigh to those I leave, 

The loving and beloved few. 
Who grieve for m^e, — for whom I grieve ! 

We part ! — no matter how we part ; 

There are some thoughts we utter not, 
Deep treasured in our inmost heart, 

Never revealed and ne'er forgot ! 

Why murmur at the common lot ? 
We part ! I speak not of the pain, — 

But when shall I each lovely spot 
And each loved face behold again ? 

It must be months, — it may be years, — 
It may — but no ! — I will not fill 

Fond hearts with gloom, fond eyes with tears, 
" Curious to shape uncertain ill." 
Though humble, few and far, yet still 

Those hearts and eyes are ever dear ; 
Theirs is the love no time can chill, 

The truth no chance or change can sear ! 

All I have seen, and all I see. 

Only endears them more and more ; 
Friends cool, hopes fade, and hours flee. — 

Affection lives when all is o'er ! 

Farewell, my more than native shore ! 
I do not seek or hope to find, 

Roam where I will, what I deplore 
To leave with them and thee behind ! 



THE FEATURES. 

N. M. MAGAZINE. 

That mortals are made up of quarrelsome clay. 
My tale, I imagine, will prove as it goes ; 

For the Features composing the visage, one day, 
Most cruelly fell to abusing the 'Nose. 



AND RECITATIONS. 149 

First, the Lips took it up, and their reason was this : 
That the Nose was a bane both to beauty and love ; 

And they never, moreover, in comfort could kiss. 
For that horrid protuberance jutting above ! 

Then Eyes, not behind in the matter to be, 

With a sparkle began, as I 've often times seen 'em, 
And vowed, " it was perfectly shocking to see 

Such a lump of deformity sticking between 'em." 
The Cheeks, with a blush, said, " the frightfulest shade, 

By the Nose, o'er their bloom and their beauty was thrown ; " 
And Ears could n't bear the loud trumpeting noise. 

Whenever that troublesome member was blown ! 

So 't was moved, and agreed, without dallying more, 

To thrust the intruder, at once, from the face. 
But Nose, hearing this, most indignantly swore, 

" By the breath of his nostrils, he 'd stick to his place ! " 
Then, addressing the Eyes, he went learnedly through 

His defence, and inquired, " when their vigor was gone, 
Pray what would their Worship for spectacles do. 

If the face had no nose, to hang spectacles on ? " 

" Mankind," he observed, " loved their scent, as their sight ; 

Or who 'd care a farthing for myrtles and roses ? 
And the charge of the Lips was as frivolous quite ; 

For, if Lips fancied kissing, pray, why might n't Noses ? 
As for Ears,"" — and, speaking. Nose scornfully curled — 

" Their murmurs were equally trifling and teazing. 
And not all the Ears, Eyes, or Lips in the world, 

Should keep him unblown, or prevent him from sneezing." 

" To the Cheeks,''^ he contended, " he acted as screen, 

And guarded them oft from the wind and the weather ; 
And but that he stood like a landmark between. 

The Face had been nothing but cheek altogether ! " 
With eloquence thus he repelled their abuse, 

With logical clearness defining the case ; 
And from thence came the saying, so frequent in use. 

That an argument 's plain " as the nose on your face ! " 



AWAY TO THE WEST. ^ 

W. K. COLE. 



Away to the West, where the primeval wood 
Yet throws its dark fringe on the Michigan flood ; 
13^ 



150 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

Where, pale in their beauty, the forest flowers bloom, 
And the earth is yet mantled in forest-land gloom ; 
With the bounds of an empire, the dark virgin soil, 
Full of treasures, awaiteth the husbandman's toil. 

Away to the West, by the Huron's green shore, 
Where nature still reigneth supreme as of yore ; 
Where, murmuring soft in the flickering gleam 
Of its leaf-curtained hall, goes the canopied stream ; 
There stands a broad realm, where the toil of the poor 
May keep the grim demon of want from the door. 

Away in the West, 'neath the brightest of skies, 
And horizon bounded, the prairie land lies — 
The prairie-land, over whose surface is rolled 
A garment much fairer than diamonds and gold ; 
There the hard hand of labor but waveth its wand, 
And a harvest all golden springs up from the land. 

Away to the West ! ye who grovel and pine 

In the haunts of the many, in tunnel and mine ; 

Banish pick-axe and shovel ! then, ho ! for the plough ; 

For a tithe of the labor that dampens your brow 

Will place you in plenty — a tithe of your toil 

Make you chief of the manor, and lord of the soil. * 

Ye famishing legions from Europe just fled, 

Ye exiles of hunger, ye seekers of bread. 

Away with the moment, and linger no more 

By the waves that have borne you across to our shore ! 

For millions and m.illions as yet there is room. 

Where the prairie lands smile and the forest trees bloom. 



BRUCE'S ADDRESS. 

R. BURNS. 

Scots, who have with Wallace bled ! 
Scots, whom Bruce has often led ! 
Welcome to your g6ry bed ! 
Or to glorious victory ! 

Now 's the day, and now 's the hour — 
See the front of battle lower ! 
See approach proud Edward's power ! 
Edward ! chains and slavery ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 

Who would be a traitor knave ? 
Who would fill a coward's grave ? 
Who so base as be a slave ? 

Traitor ! coward ! turn, and flee ! 

Who for Scotland's king and law 
Freedom's sword would strongly draw ? 
Freeman stand ! — or freeman fa' ! 
Caledonia ! on with me ! 

By oppression's woes and pains, 
By your sons in servile chains, 
We will drain our dearest veins. 

But they shall — they shall be free ! 

Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty 's in every blow ! 

Forward ! let us do or die ! 



151 



LA MARSEILLAISE, OR NATIONAL HYMN OF 
FRANCE.* 



W . B A I R D . 



Come, sons of France, and on to glory ! 

The day of vengeance is at hand. 
Behold the tyrant's flag, all gory. 

And opposing our patriot band ! 
Hear in the fields their shouts and slaughters ! 

Destroying each grave and each home, 

E'en to your arms they come. 
And they butcher your wives and your daughters ! 

What wills this conjured horde advancing, 

Of kings, of traitors, and of slaves ? 
For whom their chains and daggers glancing ? 

To prepare our shame or our graves ? 
Ah ! is it thus they scorn our power ? 

What wrath should their insults excite ! 

'T is France they thus would blight. 
And restore us to slavery's vile hour ! 

* From the French of Joseph Rougeu De L'Isle. 



152 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

What ! shall the legions of the stranger 
Dictate our laws upon our land ? 

And shall their hireling troops endanger 
The lives of our fiery band ? 

Great God ! shall hands all chained and gory- 
Bow our heads in submission and awe ? 
Shall despots make our law, 

And disgrace our country's glory ? 

Tremble, ye tyrants, and each traitor, 

The shame and scourge of every side ! 
For your projects, soon or later, 

Their fearful rewards will abide. 
All, all will rise, your troops resisting ; 

If our youth and our children fall, 

The earth will, at our call. 
Yield us more, our efforts assisting ! 

But, sons of France ! in noble daring, 

Learn to retain or strike the blow, 
Those unwilling victims sparing, 

Discern from the prompting foe. 
But each cruel despot smother. 

Each complice of bloody Bouille, 

Those tigers that still slay. 
And that tear the soft breast of their mother ! 

Blest tie to France our hearts uniting. 

Oh lead and strengthen still our arms ! 
Loved Liberty, with us now fighting. 

Help thy guardians with thy charms ! 
And let our banner, all victorious. 
Advance with thy vv^elcoming words ; 
Each foe, beneath our swords. 
See us triumph, and thee glorious. 
To arms, my countrymen ! form, form each daring band 

March on ! march on ! 
Let their blood drench the furrows of our land ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 153 

EVENING PRAYER AT A GIRL'S SCHOOL. 

B. BARTON. 

HrsH ! 't is a holy hour ! — the quiet room 

Seems like a temple, while yon soft lamp sheds 

A faint and starry radiance, through the gloom 

And the sweet stillness, down on bright young heads, 

With all their clustering locks untouched by care. 

And bowed — as flowers are bowed with night — in prayer. 

Gaze on ! 't is lovely ! — childhood's lip and cheek 
Mantling beneath its earnest brow of thought ! 

Gaze ! yet what seest thou in those fair and meek 
And fragile things, as but for sunshine wrought ? 

Thou seest what grief must nurture for the sky, 

What death must fashion for eternity ! 

O joyous creatures ! that will sink to rest 
Lightly, when those pure orisons are done. 

As birds with slumber's honey-dew oppressed, 
Midst the dim folded leaves, at set of sun, — 

Lift up your hearts ! though yet no sorrow lies 

Dark in the summer-heaven of those clear eyes. 

Though fresh within your breasts the untroubled springs 

Of hope make melody where'er ye tread. 
And o'er your sleep bright shadows from the wings 

Of spirits visiting but youth be spread. 
Yet in those flute-like voices, mingling low, 
Is woman's tenderness — how soon her woe ! 

Her lot is on you ! — silent tears to weep ; 

A patient smile to wear through suflering's hour ; 
And sumless riches, from afl'ection's deep. 

To pour on broken reeds a wasted shower ; 
And to make idols, and to find them clay. 
And to bewail that worship ; — therefore pray ! 

Her lot is on you ! — to be found untired, 
Watching the stars out by the bed of pain, 

With a pale cheek, and yet a brow inspired, 

And a true heart of hope, though hope be vain ; 

Meekly to bear with wrong, to cheer decay, 

And oh I to love through all things ! — therefore pray ! 



154 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

And take the thought of this calm vesper-thne, 

With its low murmuring sounds, and silvery light, 

On through the dark days fading from their prime, 
As a sweet dew to keep your souls from blight ! 

Earth will forsake — oh ! happy to have given 

The unbroken heart's first fragrance unto heaven ! 



THE EVENING BEFORE ETERNITY. 

J. A. HILL HOUSE. 

The sun his westering car drove low ; 
Round his broad wheel full many a lucid cloud 
Floated, like happy isles, in seas of gold ; 
Along the horizon castled shapes were piled, 
Turrets and towers, whose fronts embattled gleamed 
With yellow light : smit by the slanting ray, 
A ruddy beam the canopy reflected ; 
With deeper light the ruby blushed, and thick 
Upon the seraphs' wings the glowing spots 
Seemed drops of fire. Uncoiling from his staff 
With fainter wave, the gorgeous ensign hung ; 
Or, swelling with swelling breeze, by fits. 
Cast off upon the dewy air huge flakes 
Of golden lustre. Over all the hill. 
The heavenly legions, the assembled world, 
Evening her crimson tint forever drew. 
Mild twinkling through a crimson-skirted cloud, 
The solitary star of evening shone, 
While gazing wistful on that peerless light 
Thereafter to be seen no more, as oft 
In dreams strange images will mix, sad thoughts 
Passed o'er my soul. Sorrowing, I cried, " Farewell, 
Pale, beauteous planet, that displayest so soft 
Amid ^ron glowing streak thy transient beam, — 
A long, a last farewell ! Seasons have changed — 
Ages and empires rolled, like smoke, away — 
But thou, unaltered, beamest as silver fair 
As on thy birth-night ! Bright and watchful eyes. 
From palaces and bowers, have hailed thy gem 
With secret transport ! Natal star of love, 
And souls that love the shadowy hour of fancy, 
How much I owe thee, how I bless thy ray ! 
How oft thy rising o'er the hamlet green — 
Signal of rest, and social converse sweet, 



AND RECITATIONS. 155 

Beneath some patriarchal tree — has cheered 
The peasant's heart, and drawn his benison ! 
Pride of the west ! beneath thy placid light 
The tender tale shall never more be told ; 
Man's soul shall never wake to joy again ; 
Thou set'st forever, — lovely orb, farewell ! " 



THE FLIGHT OF XERXES. 

M. J. JEWSBUKY. 

I SAW him on the battle eve, 

When like a king he bore him, — 
Proud hosts, in glittering helm and greave, 

And prouder chiefs, before him ; 
The warrior, and the warrior's deeds, — 
The morrow, and the morrow's meeds, — 
No daunting thoughts came o'er him ; 
He looked around him, and his eye 
Defiance flashed — to earth, and sky. 

He looked on ocean ; its broad breast 

Was covered with his fleet ; — 
On earth ; and saw, from east to west, 

His bannered millions meet ; — 
While rocks, and glen, and cave, and coast, 
Shook with the war-cry of that host. 

The thunder of their feet ! 
He heard the imperial echoes ring, — 
He heard, and felt himself a king. 

I saw him next, alone ; — nor camp. 

Nor chief, his steps attended ; 
Nor banner blazed, nor courser's tramp. 

With war-cries proudly blended. 
He stood, alone, whom fortune high 
So lately seemed to deify ; 

He, who with Heaven contended. 
Fled like a fugitive and slave ! 
Behind, — the foe ; before, — the wave. 

He stood: fleet, army, treasure, — gone, — 

Alone and in despair ! 
But wave and wind swept ruthless on, 

For they were monarchs there ; 



156 ^ POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

And Xerxes, in a single bark, 

Where late his thousand ships were dark, 

Must all their fury dare : 
What a revenge — a trophy, this — 
For thee, immortal Salamis ! 



MY CHOICE. 

ANONYMOUS. 



I ASK not wealth ; — the glittering toy 

I never may command ; 
Let others own it is their joy, 

And wield the gilded wand. 

I ask not fame ; — the laureled wreath 
My brow would never wear ; 

It cannot shield the heart from grief, 
Or banish even care. 

I ask not beauty ; — 't is a gem 

As fleeting as 't is bright ; 
Even one rough gale may bear it hence. 

And saddening is its flight. 

Such fading flowers of earthly ground 
Why should I e'er possess ? — 

In them no lasting bliss is found, 
No solid happiness. 

The soul's calm sunshine I would know ; 

Be mine religion's trust ; 
Be mine its precious truth to know ; — 

All else is sordid dust. 

And hope and faith, as angels bright. 

Be mine attendants too, 
Bear me above earth's sinful might, — 

Present me heaven's bright view. 

For death, ere long, with subtle art. 
Will claim his kindred dust ; — 

How peaceful, then, will be my heart ! 
How sacred be its trust ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 157 

Then I can feel life's troubled road 

Has not been passed in vain ; 
And, calmly trusting in my God, 

Yield back my breath again. 



THE KAISER. 

W. HO WITT. 

The Kaiser's"^ hand from all his foes 
Had won him glory and repose ; 
Richly through his rejoicing land 
Were felt the blessings of his hand ; 
And when at eve he sought his rest, 
A myriad hearts his slumbers blessed. 

In midnight's hush a tempest broke ; — 
Throughout his realm its myriads woke ; 
And by the lightning's rapid flash. 
And 'mid the thunder's bellowing crash, 
In faith to heaven their prayers they spake, 
For Christ's and for the Kaiser's sake. 

But with a start, and with a pang, 
Up from his couch the Kaiser sprang ; 
What ! Feareth he who never feared 
When bloody deaths through hosts careered ? 
What ! Can the tempest's passing sound 
That heart of battles thus confound ? 

No ! no ! But in its deepest deep 
It wakes a cry no more to sleep ; 
And there ! and there ! in wrath begin 
The pangs — the power of secret sin. 
A blow is dealt, — a strife is stirred, — 
Without, the storm may pass unheard ! 

And, therefore, from his palace door 
He passed into the loud uproar ; 
In wildest wind, and blackest night, 
He passed away in sudden flight : 
'Mid lightning, rain, and thunder's roll, 
He went, — a fire within his soul. 



* Henry V., of Germany. 

14 



158 POETICAL DECLABIATIONS 

The Kaiser went in storm and night, 
But ne'er returned in peace and light ; 
Astonished thousands asked his lot, 
Love sought, and sought, but found him not ; 
But conscience did what conscience would, 
And sealed its errand — blood for blood ! 



THE SUMMONS OF THE DESTROYER. 

H. H. MILMAN. 

The hour is come ! the hour is come ! With voice 

Heard in thy inmost soul, I summon thee, 

Cyrus, the Lord's anointed ! And thou river, 

That flowest exulting in thy proud approach 

To Babylon, beneath whose shadowy walls, 

And brazen gates, and gilded palaces. 

And graves, that gleam with marble obelisks. 

Thy azure bosom shall repose, with lights 

Fretted and chequered like the starry heavens ; 

I do arrest thee in thy stately course. 

By Him that poured thee from thine ancient fountain, 

And sent thee forth, even at the birth of time. 

One of his holy streams, to lave the mounts 

Of Paradise. Thou hear'st me ; thou dost check 

Abrupt thy waters, as the Arab chief 

His headlong squadrons. Where the unobserved 

Yet toiling Persian breaks the ruining mound, 

I see thee gather thy tumultuous strength. 

And, through the deep and roaring Naharmalcha, 

Roll on, as proudly conscious of fulfilling 

The omnipotent command ! While, far away, 

The lake, that slept but now so calm, nor moved. 

Save the rippling moonshine, heaves on high 

Its foaming surface like a whirlpool-gulf. 

And boils and whitens with the unwonted tide. 

But silent as thy billows used to flow. 

And terrible, the hosts of Elam move. 

Winding their darksome way profound, where man 

Ne'er trod, nor light e'er shone, nor air from heaven 

Breathed. Oh ! ye secret and unfathomed depths. 

How are ye now a smooth and royal way 

For the army of God's vengeance ! Fellow-slaves, 

And ministers of the eternal purpose, 



AND RECITATIONS. 159 

Not guided by the treacherous, injured sons 

Of Babylon, but by my mightier arm ! 

Ye come, and spread your banners, and display 

Your glittering arms as ye advance, all white 

Beneath the admiring moon ! Come on ! the gates 

Are open — not for banqueters in blood 

Like you ! I see on either side o'erflow 

The living deluge of armed men, and cry, 

Begin, begin ! with fire and sword begin 

The work of wrath ! Upon my shadowy wings 

I pause, and float a little while, to see 

Mine human instruments fulfil my task 

Of final ruin. Then I mount, I fly. 

And sing my proud song, as I ride the clouds, 

That stars may hear, and all the hosts of worlds, 

That live along the interminable space, 

Take up Jehovah's everlasting triumph ! 



SATAN CALLING THE FALLEN ANGELS. 

J. MILTON. 

He scarce had ceased, when the superior fiend 
Was moving toward the shore, his ponderous shield 
(Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,) 
Behind him cast ! The broad circumference 
Hung on his shoulders, like the moon, whose orb, 
Through optic glass, the Tuscan artist views, 
At evening from the top of Fiesole, 
Or in Voldarno, to descry new lands, 
Rivers, or mountains, on her spotty globe. 
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine 
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 
Of some great admiral, were but a wand, 
He walked with to support uneasy steps 
Over the burning marl : not like those steps 
On heaven's azure ! and the torrid clime 
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire. 
Nathless he so endured till on the beach 
Of that enflamed sea he stood, and called 
His legions, angel forms, who lay, entranced. 
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks 
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades. 
High overarched, embower ; or scattered sedge 
Afloat, when the fierce winds Orion, armed, 



160 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew 

Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, 

While with perfidious hatred they pursued 

The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld. 

From the safe shore, their floating carcasses 

And broken chariot wheels : so thick bestrewn, 

Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood, 

Under amazement of their hideous change. 

He called so loud, that all the hollow deep 

Of hell resounded. " Princes ! Potentates ! 

Warriors ! the flower of heaven — once yours, now lost- 

If such astonishment as this can seize 

Eternal spirits : or have ye chosen this place, 

To slumber here, as in the vales of heaven? 

Or in this abject posture have you sworn 

To adore the Conqueror ? who now beholds 

Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood, 

With scattered arms and ensigns. Till anon. 

His swift pursuers, from heaven's gates discern 

The advantage, and, descending, tread us down 

Thus drooping ; or with linked thunderbolts 

Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf. 

Awake ! arise ! or be forever fallen ! " 



WATER, BRIGHT WATER FOR ME! 

E. JOHNSON. 

Oh ! water for me ! bright water for me. 

And wine for the tremulous debauchee ! 

It cooleth the brow, it cooleth the brain. 

It maketh the faint one strong again ; 

It comes o'er the sense like a breeze from the sea, 

AH freshness, like infant purity; 

Oh ! water, bright water, for me, for me ! 

Give wine, give wine to the debauchee ! 

FiU to the brim ! FiH, fill to the brim ! 
For water strengtheneth life and limb ; 
To the days of the aged it addeth length ; 
To the might of the strong it addeth strength; 
It freshens the heart, it brightens the sight, 
'T is quaffing a goblet of morning light. 
So, water, I will drink nought but thee, 
Thou parent of health and energy ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 

When o'er the hills, like a gladsome bride, 
Morning walks forth in her beauty's pride, 
And, leading a band of laughing hours. 
Brushes the dew from the morning flowers ; 
Oh ! cheerily then my voice is heard, 
Mingling with that of the soaring bird. 
Who flingeth abroad his matins loud. 
As he freshens his wing in the cold gray cloud. 

But when evening has quitted her sheltering yew, 

Drowsily flying, and weaving anew 

Her dusky meshes o'er land and sea. 

How gently, O sleep, fall the poppies on me ! 

For I drink water, pure, cold, and bright. 

And my dreams are of heaven the livelong night ; 

So, hurrah for thee, water ! hurrah ! hurrah ! 

Thou art silver and gold, thou art riband and star ! 

Hurrah for bright water ! Hurrah, hurrah ! 



161 



A MODEST WIT. 

ANONTMOUS. 

A SUPERCILIOUS nabob of the east — 

Haughty, being great — purse-proud, being rich, 
A governor, or general, at the least, 

I have forgotten which — 
Had in his family a humble youth. 

Who went from England in his patron's suite, 
An unassuming boy, and in truth 

A lad of decent parts, and good repute. 

This youth had sense and spirit ; 

But yet, with all his sense. 

Excessive diffidence 
Obscured his merit. 

One day, at table, flushed with pride and wine, 
His honor, proudly free, severely merry. 

Conceived it would be vastly fine 
To crack a joke upon his secretary. 

" Young man," he said, " by what art, craft or trade, 
Did your good father gain a livelihood?" — 

" He was a saddler, sir," Modestus said, 
"And in his time was reckoned good." — 
14# 



162 



POETICAL DECLADIATIONS 



"A saddler, eh ! and taught you Greek, 

Instead of teaching you to sew ! 
Pray, why did not your father make 

A saddler, sir, of you ? " 

Each parasite, then, as in duty bound. 

The joke applauded, and the laugh went round. 

At length Modestus, bowing low, 
Said, (craving pardon, if too free he made,) 

" Sir, by your leave, I fain would know 
Your father's trade ! " 

" My father's trade ! by heaven, that 's too bad ! 
My father's trade ? Why, blockhead, are you mad ? 
My father, sir, did never stoop so low — 
He was a gentleman, I 'd have you know." 

" Excuse the liberty I take," 

Modestus said, with archness on his brow, 
" Pray, why did not your father make 

A gentleman of you ? " 



THE PILGRIM MOTHERS. 

S. F. STREETER. 

The Pilgrim Mothers ! Where are they ? 

Their frames are dust, their souls in heaven ; 
Yet shall their memory pass away. 

Nor praise to their good deeds be given ? 
' Teach infant lips to sing their name," 

(Ten thousand ready tongues reply;) 
And give their noble acts to fame. 

Though now in silent dust they lie ! 

They severed fond affection's chain, 

And looked and listened o'er and o'er, 
On forms they might not see again. 

To voices they might hear no more ; 
Then tore their bleeding hearts away 

From peaceful homes beyond the sea. 
Where they had passed their childhood's day. 

Yet where the srmiT was not free. 



AND RECITATIONS. 163 

No HOME for them — that magic word 

Which, fraught with love, and joy, and rest, 
Whenever and wherever heard. 

Unseals pure fountains in the breast, — 
No home for them ; for, far away, 

The dwellings of their kindred stood, 
Beyond the swelling ocean's play, 

Far from their forest solitude. 

They sought a strange and wintry shore, 

Yet love burned brightly in th.eir breast; 
They shrank not when the mourners bore 

The weary spirits to their rest ; 
And oft, when from a savage tongue 

Pealed wildly forth the battle cry. 
They to their trusting children clung. 

And calmly gave themselves to die. 

Oh, man, boast not thy " lion heart ! 

Tell not of proud heroic deed ! 
Have we not seen thy vaunted art 

Fail in the deepest hour of need ? " 
But, woman's courage ! 't is more deep. 

More strong, than heart of man can feel, — 
To save her little ones that sleep, 

She bares her bosom to the steel ! 

Daughters of those, who, long ago. 

Dared the dark storm and angry sea, 
And walked the desert way of woe. 

And pain and trouble, to be free ! 
Oh, be like them ! like them endure. 

And bow beneath affliction's rod ; 
Like them be humble, mild, and pure, — 

In joy and sorrow, look to God. 



THE PAUPER'S DEATH-BED. 

C. B. SOUTHEY. 

Tread softly — bow the head ; 

In reverent silence bow ; 
No passing bell doth toll. 
Yet an immortal soul 

Is passing now. 



164 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

Stranger ! however great, 

With lowly reverence bow ; 
There 's one in that poor shed, 
One by that paltry bed, ' ' 

Greater than thou. 

Beneath that beggar's roof, 

Lo ! Death doth keep his state ; 

Enter — no crowds attenji ; 

Enter — no guards defend 
This palace gate. 

That pavement, damp and cold, 

No smiling courtiers tread ; 
One silent woman stands, 
Lifting with meagre hands . 
A dying head. 

No mingling voices sound — 

An infant wail alone ; 
A sob suppressed — again 
That short, deep gasp, and then 

The parting groan. 

Oh ! change ! — Oh ! wondrous change ! • 
Burst are the prison bars — 

This moment there, so low, 

So agonized, and now 
Beyond the stars ! 

Oh ! change — stupendous change ! 

There lies the soulless clod ! 
The Sun eternal breaks — 
The new immortal wakes — 

Wakes with his God ! 



ALBUQUERQUE. 



A STORM was on the deep ; 

And lightning, in its wrath. 
Called the darkness from its sleep, 

In the fierce tornado's path : 



AND RECITATIONS. 165 

The ocean waves went up among 

The thunder-spirit's choir, 
Recoiling as the death-note rung 

From their canopy of fire. 

"Awake! awake I — behold 

Death throned among the clouds ! 
The sands of life are told — 

The waves must be our shrouds." 
Thus spake the chief, while, clinging round, 

The shrieking concourse stood, 
Waiting the sulphurous bolt to sound 

Their requiem for the flood. 

Stern Albuquerque that hour 

Showed horror on his brow. 
While conscience, in her power, 

Made his haughty heart to bow ; 
Hot lightning blackened many a corse, 

And cleft his bending mast, 
While, bounding like a reinless horse, 

On went the proud ship fast. 

Pressed down with guilty fear, 

He knew his turn might be — 
Another bolt fell near, 

And burst upon the sea ; — 
When, from a mother's bosom blest, 

He snatched her infant care, 
And, clasping it before his breast. 

Defied the lightning's glare. 

"Now strike ! — I stand prepared ; 

Hurl down, proud Heaven, thy worst ! 
For innocence is bared 

Before a bosom cursed ! " 
He stood — the tempest fell asleep — 

The hurricane passed o'er, — 
His arms that keep the mighty deep 

Showed mercy, and forbore ! 



166 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

THE SEMINOLE'S REPLY. 

G. W. PATTEN. 

Blaze, with your serried columns ! 

I will not bend the knee ! 
The shackles ne'er again shall bind 

The arm which now is free. 
I 've mailed it with the thunder, 

When the tempest muttered low ; 
And where it falls, ye well may dread 

The lightning of its blow ! 

I 've scared ye in the city, 

I Ve scalped ye on the plain ; 
Go, count your chosen, where they fell 

Beneath my leaden rain ! 
I scorn your proffered treaty ! 

The pale-face I defy ! 
Revenge is stamped upon my spear, 

And blood my battle cry ! 

Some strike for hope of booty, 

Some to defend their all, — 
I battle for the joy I have 

To see the white man fall : 
I love, among the wounded, 

To hear his dying moan, 
And catch, while chanting at his side, 

The music of his groan. 

Ye 've trailed me through the forest. 

Ye 've tracked me o'er the stream ; 
And struggling through the everglade. 

Your bristling bayonets gleam ; 
But I stand as should the warrior. 

With his rifle and his spear ; 
The scalp of vengeance still is red, 

And warns ye — Come not here ! 

I loathe ye in my bosom, 

I scorn ye with mine eye, 
And I '11 taunt ye with my latest breath, 

And fight ye till I die ! 
I ne'er will ask ye quarter, 

And I ne'er will be your slave ; 
But I '11 swim the sea of slaughter. 

Till I sink beneath its wave ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 167 



HISTORY OF JOHN DAY. 



John Day, he was the biggest man, 

Of all the j:oachman kind ; 
With back too broad to be conceived 

By any narrow mind. 

The very horses knew his weight, 

When he was in the rear. 
And wished his box a Christmas-box, 

To come but once a year. 

Alas ! against the shafts of love 

What armor can avail ? 
Soon Cupid sent an arrow through 

His scarlet coat of mail. 

The bar-maid of " The Crown" he loved, 
From whom he never ranged ; 

For, though he changed his horses there, 
His love he never changed. 

He thought her fairest of all fares. 

So fondly love prefers ; 
And often, among twelve outsides, 

No outside deemed like hers. 

One day, as she was sitting down 

Beside the porter pump, 
He came and knelt, with all his fat, 

And made an offer plump. 

Said she, " My taste will never learn 

To like so huge a man ; 
So I must beg you will come here 

As little as you can." 

But still he stoutly urged his suit. 
With vows, and sighs, and tears, 

Yet could not pierce her heart, although 
He drove the " Dart " for years. 

In vain he wooed — in vain he sued — 
The maid was cold and proud, 

And sent him off to Coventry, 
While on the way to Stroud. 



168 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

He fretted all the way to Stroud, 
And thence all back to town ; 

The course of love was never smooth, 
So his went up and down. 

At last, her coldness made him pine 
To merely hones and skin ; 

But still he loved like one resolved 
To love through thick and thin. 

" 0, Mary ! view my wasted back. 
And see my dwindled calf ! 

Though I have never had a wife, 
I 've lost my better half ! " 

Alas ! in vain he still assailed, 
Her heart withstood the dint ; 

Though he had carried sixteen stone, 
He could not move a flint ! 

Worn out, at last he made a vow. 
To break his being's link, 

For he was so reduced in size. 
At nothing he could shrink. 

Now, some will talk in water's praise. 
And waste a deal of breath ; 

But John, though he drank nothing else, 
He drank himself to death. 

The cruel maid, that caused his love, 
Found out the fatal close. 

For, looking in the butt, she saw 
The butt end of his woes. 

Some say his spirit haunts the Crown ; 

But that is only talk ; 
For, after riding all his life. 

His ghost objects to walk. 



AND RECITATIONS. 169 

THE POLISH EXILES. 

MISS PARDOE. 

Forth went they from their fatherland, 

A fallen and fettered race, 
To find upon a distant strand 

Their dark abiding place. 
Forth went they ; — not as freemen go, 

With firm and fearless eye ; 
But with the bowed mien of woe, 

As men go forth to die. 

The aged in their silver hair. 

The young in manhood's might. 
The mother with her infant care, 

The child in wild affright ; — 
Forth went they all — a pallid band ! 

With many an anguished start ; 
The chains lay heavy on their hand, 

But heavier on their heart ! 

No sounds disturbed the desert air, 

But those of bitter woe, 
Save when, at times, reechoed there 

The curses of the foe — 
When hark ! another cry pealed out — 

A cry of idiot glee, 
Answered and heightened by the shout 

Of the fierce soldiery ! 

'T was childhood's voice ! but, ah ! how wild, 

How demon-like, its swell ! — 
The mother shrieked to hear her child 

Give forth that soul-fraught yell ! 
And fathers wrung their fettered hands 

Beneath their maddening woe, 
While shouted out their infant bands, 

Shrill chorus to the foe ! 

And curses deep and low were said. 

Whose murmurs reached to heaven ; 
Thick sighs were heaved, hot tears were shed, 

And women's hearts were riven. 
As, heedless of their present woes, 

The children onward trod. 
And sang ; and their young voices rose 

A vengeance cry to God ! 
15 



170 POETICAL DECLABIATIONS 

CASABIANCA. 

F. HEMANS. 

The boy stood on the burning deck, 
Whence all but him had fled ; 

The flame that lit the battle's wreck 
Shone round him o'er the dead ; 

Yet beautiful and bright he stood, 

As born to rule the storm ; 
A creature of heroic blood, 

A proud, though childlike form. 

The flames rolled on ; he would not go 

Without his father's word ; 
That father, faint in death below, 

His voice no longer heard. 

He called aloud, " Say, father, say, 

If yet my task be done ? " 
He knew not that the chieftain lay 

Unconscious of his son. 

" Speak, father ! " once again he cried, 

" If I may yet be gone ! " 
And but the booming shots replied, 

And fast the flames rolled on. 

Upon his brow he felt their breath. 

And in his waving hair ; 
And looked from that lone post of death 

In still, yet brave despair. 

And shouted but once more aloud, 

" My father ! must I stay ? " 
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud, 

The wreathing fires made way. 

They wrapt the ship in splendor wild. 
They caught the flag on high, 

And streamed above the gallant child, 
Like banners in the sky. 

There came a burst of thunder sound ; 

The boy — Oh ! where was he ? 
Ask of the winds, that far around 

With fragments strewed the sea, — 

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair. 
That well had borne their part, — 

But the noblest thing that perished there 
Was that young faithful heart. 



AND RECITATIONS. 171 

PATIENCE AND HOPE. 

E. L. BULWER. 

Upon a barren steep, 

Above a stormy deep, 
I saw an angel watching the wild sea ; 

Earth was that barren steep. 

Time was that stormy deep, 
And4he opposing shore, Eternity !* 

" Why dost thou watch the wave ? 

Thy feet the waters lave ; 
The tide engulfs thee if thou dost delay." — 

" Unscathed I watch the wave ; — . 

Time, not the angel's grave, 
I wait until the waters ebb again ! " 

Hushed on the angel's breast, 

I saw an infant rest. 
Smiling on the gloomy hell below. 

" What is the infant prest, 

O angel, to thy breast ? " — 
" The child God gave me in the long-ago ! 

" Mine all upon the earth — 

The angel's angel-birth. 
Smiling all terror from the howling wild ! 

Never may 1 forget 

The dream that haunts me yet 
Of Patience nursing Hope — the angel and the child ! " 



EXCELSIOR. 

H. W. LONGFELLOW. 



The shades of night were falling fast. 
As through an Alpine village passed 
A youth, who bore, mid snow and ice, 
A banner with the strange device. 
Excelsior ! 

His brow was sad ; his eye, beneath, 
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath 



172 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

And like a silver clarion rung 
The accents of that unknown tongue, 
Excelsior ! 

In happy homes he saw the light 
Of household fires gleam warm and bright 
Above, the spectral glaciers shone ; 
And from his lips escaped a groan, 
Excelsior ! 

" Try not the pass ! " the old man said ; 
" Dark lowers the tempest overhead ; 
The roaring torrent is deep and wide ! " — 
And loud that clarion voice replied. 
Excelsior ! 

" Oh ! stay," the maiden said, " and rest 
Thy weary head upon this breast ! " — 
A tear stood in his bright blue eye ; 
But still he answered, with a sigh, 
Excelsior ! 

" Beware the pine-tree's withered branch ! 
Beware the awful avalanche ! " 
This was the peasant's last good-night ; — 
A voice replied, far up the height, 
Excelsior ! 

At break of day, as heavenward 
The pious monks of St. Bernard 
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer, 
A voice cried, through the startled air, 
Excelsior ! 

A traveller, — by the faithful hound. 
Half buried in the snow, was found. 
Still grasping, in his hand of ice. 
The banner with the strange device. 
Excelsior ! 

There, in the twilight cold and gray, 
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay ; 
And from the sky, serene and far, 
A voice fell, like a falling star, — 
Excelsior ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 

THE FARMER'S BLUNDER. 

ANONYMOUS. 

A FARMER once to London went, 
To pay the worthy squire his rent. 
He comes, he knocks ; soon entrance gains, — 
Who at the door such guests detains ? 
Forth struts the squire, exceeding smart — 
" Farmer, you 're welcome to my heart ; 
You 've brought my rent, then, to a hair ! 
The best of tenants, I declare ! " 
The steward 's called, the accounts made even ; 
The money paid, the receipt was given. 
" Well," said the squire, " now, you shall stay, 
And dine with me, old friend, to-day ; 
I 've here some ladies, wondrous pretty, 
And pleasant sparks, too, who will fit ye." 
Hob scratched his ears, and held his hat. 
And said — " No, zur ; two words to that ; 
For look, d' ye zee, when I 'ze to dine 
With gentlefolks, zo cruel fine, 
I 'ze use to make, — r and 't is no wonder, — 
In word or deed, some plag'y blunder ; 
Zo, if your honor will permit, 
I '11 with your zarvants pick a bit." 
" Poh ! " says the squire, " it sha'nt be done j" 
And to the parlor pushed him on. 
To all around he nods and scrapes ; 
Not waiting-maid or butler 'scapes ; 
With often bidding, takes his seat, 
But at a distance mighty great. 
Though often asked to draw his chair, 
He nods, nor comes an inch more near. 
By madam served, with body bended, 
With knife and fork and arms extended, 
He reached as far as he was able 
To plate, that overhangs the table ; 
With little morsels cheats his chops. 
And in the passage some he drops. 
To show where most his heart inclined, 
He talked and drank to John behind. 
When drank to, in a modish way, 
" Your love 's sufficient, zur," he 'd say : 
And, to be thought a man of manners. 
Still rose to make his awkward honors. 
15^' 



173 



174 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

" Tush ! " says the squire ; " pray keep your sitting ! " 

" No, no," he cries, " zur, 't is not fitting : 

Though I 'm no scholar, versed in letters, 

I knows my duty to my betters." 

Much mirth the farmer's ways afford, 

And hearty laughs went round the board. 

Thus, the first course was ended well ; 

But at the next — ah ! what befell ? 

The dishes were now timely placed, 

And table with fresh lux'ry graced. 

When drank to by a neighboring charmer, 

Up, as usual, starts the farmer. 

A wag, to carry on the joke, 

Thus to his servant softly spoke : — 

" Come hither, Dick ; step gently there, 

And pull away the farmer's chair." 

'T is done ; his congee made, the clown 

Draws back, and stoops to sit him down ; 

But, by posteriors overweighed, 

And of his trusty seat betrayed, 

As men, at twigs, in rivers sprawling, 

He caught the cloth to save his falling ; 

In vain ! — sad fortune ! down he wallowed. 

And, rattling, all the dishes followed : 

The fops soon lost their little wits ; 

The ladies squalled — some fell in fits ; 

Here tumbled turkeys, tarts, and widgeons, 

And there, minced pies, and geese, and pigeons ; 

Lord ! what a do 'twixt belles and beaux ! — 

Some curse, some cry, and rub their clothes ! 

This lady raves, and that looks down, 

And weeps, and wails her spattered gown. 

One spark bemoans his greased waistcoat. 

One — " Eot him ! he has spoiled my laced-coat ! " 

Amidst the rout, the farmer long 

Some pudding sucked, and held his tongue ; 

At length, rabs his eyes, nostrils twang. 

Then snaps his fingers, and thus began : 

" Plague tak 't ! I 'ze tell you how 'd 'twould be ; 

Look ! here 's a pickle, zurs, d' ye see." 

" Peace, brute, begone ! " the ladies cry ; 

The beaux exclaim, " Fly, rascal, fly ! " 

" I '11 tear his eyes out ! " squeaks Miss Dolly ; 

" I '11 pink his soul out ! " roars a bully. 



AND RECITATIONS. 175 



At this, the farmer shrinks with fear, 
And thinking 't was ill tarrying here, 
Runs off, and cries, " Ay, kill me, then, 
Whene'er you catch me here again ! " 



LOOK ALOFT. 

J. LAWRENCE. 



In the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale 
Are around and above, if thy footing should fail, — 
If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart, — 
" Look aloft," and be firm, and be fearless of heart. 

If the friend who embraced in prosperity's glow. 
With a smile for each joy, and a tear for each woe. 
Should betray thee when sorrows like clouds are arrayed, 
" Look aloft," to the friendship which never shall fade. 

Should the visions which hope spreads in light to thine eye. 
Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly, — 
Then turn, and, through tears of repentant regret, 
" Look aloft" to the sun that is never to set. 

Should they who are nearest and dearest thy heart, — 
Thy relations and friends — in sorrow depart, — 
" Look aloft," from the darkness and dust of the tomb, 
To that soil where affection is ever in bloom. 

And O, when Death comes in terrors, to cast 
His fears on the future, his pall on the past, — 
In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart, 
And a smile in thine eye, " look aloft," and depart. 



SONG OF LABOR. 

I. F. SHEPARD. 



All honor to the hard-worn hands 
That earth-born toil are bearing ! 

And honor to the sturdy bands 

That earth's cold crusts are sharing ! 



176 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

By forge and field their arms they wield, 
By bench and anvil toiling ; 

In serried strength, our country's shield, 
They keep her flag from soiling. 

The good cordwainer sits him down 

Upon his throne of leather, 
And covets not the tyrant's crown, 

Where clustered jewels gather ; 
High prizes he the soul that 's free. 

The mind by power unbroken ; 
To him loud mirth and jocund glee 

Are freedom's language spoken. 

" Ye ho ! Ye ho ! " the seamen shout 

From every crested billow ; 
" Ye ho ! heigh ho ! " each watch about, 

Like music, lulls his pillow : 
And midst the storm his heart is warm. 

The light of home is burning, 
And kindly thoughts like blossoms swarm, 

With genial spring returning. 

Up from the forge the sparkling blaze 

Lights on the smith to glory ; 
The yeoman stout, with morning's rays. 

Shakes down night's tear-drops rosy ; 
And solid health, with solid wealth, 

Keep step with footfall steady ; 
Nor comes old age with creeping stealth, 

But finds them ripe and ready. 

Oh ! all things labor that have birth, 

From mote to towering mountain ; — 
The oak that springs from out the earth. 

The water in its fountain : 
Each blazing star, that beams afar, 

Its motion ceases never ; 
And myriad worlds of spirits are 

To good works bound forever. 

Then honor to the lusty hands 
That earth-born toil are bearing! 

And honor to the sturdy bands 

That earth's cold crusts are sharino" ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 177 

By forge and field their arms they wield, 

By bench and anvil toiling ; 
In serried strength, our country's shield, 

They keep her flag from soiling, 



THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 

J. a. WHITTIER. 

The sky is ruddy in the east, 

The earth is gray below, 
And spectral in the river mist 

Our bare white timbers show. 
Up ! — let the sounds of measured stroke 

And grating saw begin : 
The broad-axe to the knarled oak, 

The mallet to the pin ! 

Hark ! — roars the bellows, blast on blast ! 

The sooty smithy jars, 
And sparks are rising far and fast, 

And fading with the stars. 
All day for us the smith shall stand 

Beside that smashing forge ; 
All day for us his heavy hand 

The groaning anvil scourge. 

Gee up ! — Gee ho ! — The panting steam 

For us is toiling near ; 
For us the raftsmen down the stream 

Their island-barges steer. 
Rings out for us the axeman's stroke 

In forests old and still ; 
For us the century circled oak 

Falls crashing down his hill. 

Up ! — up ! — In nobler toil than ours 

No craftsmen bear a part ; 
We make of Nature's giant powers 

The slaves of human Art. 
Lay rib to rib and beam to beam, 

And drive the trunnels free ; 
Nor faithless joint nor yawning seam 

Shall tempt the searching sea ! 



178 POETICAL DECLALLA.TIONS 

Ho ! — Strike away the bars and blocks, 

And set the good ship free ! 
Why lingers on these dusky rocks 

The young bride of the sea ? 
Look ! — how she moves adown the grooves 

In graceful beauty now ! 
How lowly on the breast she loves 

Sinks down her virgin brow ! 

God bless her, whereso'er the breeze 

Her snowy wing shall fan ! — 
Aside the frozen Hebrides 

Or sultry Hindostan ! 
AVhere'er, in mart or on the main, 

With peaceful flag unfurled, 
She helps to wind the silken chain 

Of Commerce round the world ! 

Speed on the ship ! — but let her bear 

No merchandise of sin ; 
No groaning cargo of despair 

Her roomy hold within. 
Her pathway on the open main 

May blessings follow free, 
And glad hearts welcome back again 

Her white sails from the sea ! 



RIENZrS ADDRESS. 

M. R. MITFORD. 

Friends : I come not here to talk. Ye know too well 

The story of our thraldom ; — we are slaves ! 

The bright sun rises to his course, and lights 

A race of slaves ! He sets, and his last beam 

Falls on a slave ! — not such as, swept along 

By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads 

To crimson glory and undying fame ; 

But base, ignoble slaves — slaves to a horde 

Of petty tyrants, feudal despots, lords, 

Kich in some dozen paltry villages — 

Strong in some hundred spearsmen — only great 

In that strange spell, a name ! Each hour, dark fraud, 

Or open rapine, or protected murder. 

Cries out against them. But this very day, 



AND RECITATIONS. 179 

An honest man, my neighbor — there he stands — 

Was struck — struck like a dog, by one who wore 

The badge of Ursini ! because, forsooth, 

He tossed not high his ready cap in air, 

Nor Hfted up his voice in servile shouts, 

At sight of that great ruffian ! Be we men, 

And suffer such dishonor ? Men, and wash not 

The stain away in blood ? Such shames are common. 

I have known deeper wrongs. I, that speak to you — 

I had a brother once, — a gracious boy, 

Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope. 

Of sweet and quiet joy ; there was the look 

Of heaven upon his face, which limners give 

To the beloved disciple. How I loved 

That gracious boy ! Younger by fifteen years, 

Brother at once and son ! He left my side, 

A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, a smile 

Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour, 

The pretty, harmless boy was slain ! I saw 

The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried 

For vengeance ! Rouse, ye Romans ! rouse, ye slaves ! 

Have ye brave sons ? Look, in the next fierce brawl, 

To see them die ! Have ye daughters fair ? Look 

To see them live, torn from your arms, distained, 

Dishonored ! and if ye dare call for justice, 

Be answered by the lash ! Yet this is Rome, 

That sat on her seven hills, and, from her throne 

Of beauty, ruled the world ! Yet we are Romans ! 

Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman 

Was greater than a king ! — And once again — 

Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the tread 

Of either Brutus ! — once again I swear. 

The eternal city shall be free ! her sons 

Shall walk with princes ! 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 

F. a. HALLE CK. 

At midnight, in his guarded tent. 
The Turk was dreaming of the hour 

When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent. 
Should tremble at his power ; 

In dreams, through camp and court, he bore 

The trophies of a conqueror ; 



180 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

In dreams, his song of triumph heard ; 
Then wore his monarch's signet ring, — 
Then pressed that monarch's throne — a king ! 
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, 

As Eden's garden bird. 

An hour passed on ; — the Turk awoke ; — 

That bright dream was his last ; — 
He woke — to hear his sentry's shriek, 

"To arms ! they come ! the Greek ! the Greek ! " 
He woke — to die, midst flame and smoke. 
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke, 

And death-shots falling thick and fast 
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud ; 
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, 

Bozzaris cheer his band ; — 
" Strike, till the last armed foe expires ! 
Strike, for your altars and your fires ! 
Strike, for the green graves of your sires ! 

God, and your native land ! " 

They fought, like brave men, long and well ; 

They piled that ground with Moslem slain ; 
They conquered ; — but Bozzaris fell, 

Bleeding at every vein. 
His few surviving comrades saw 
His smile, when rang their proud hurrah, 

And the red field was won ; 
Then saw in death his eyelids close 
Calmly, as to a night's repose. 

Like flowers at set of sun. 

Come to the bridal chamber. Death ! 

Come to the mother, when she feels. 
For the first time, her first-born's breath ; — 

Come when the blessed seals 
Which close the pestilence are broke. 
And crowded cities wail its stroke ; — 
Come in Consumption's ghastly form. 
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm ; — 
Come when the heart beats high and warm, 

With banquet-song, and dance, and wine, — 
And thou art terrible ; — the tear. 
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier. 
And all we know, or dream, or fear. 

Of agony, are thine ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 181 

But to the hero, when his sword 

Has won the battle for the free, 
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word, 
And in its hollow tones are heard 

The thanks of millions yet to be. 
Bozzaris ! with the storied brave 

Greece nurtured in her glory's- time, 
Rest thee ; — there is no prouder grave, 

Even in her own proud clime. 

We tell thy doom without a sigh ; 
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's, — 
One of the few immortal names. 

That were not born to die. 



SPARE THE BIRDS. 

G. W. BETHUNE. 

Spare, spare the gentle bird. 

Nor do the warbler wrong ! 
In the green wood is heard 

Its sweet and gentle song ; 
Its song so clear and glad 

Each listener's heart has stirred 
And none, however sad. 

But blessed that happy bird. 

And when, at early day, 

The farmer trod the dew, 
It met him on the way 

With welcome blithe and true ; 
So, when, at early eve. 

He homeward wends his way ; 
For sorely would he grieve 

To miss the well-loved lay. 

The sick man on his bed 

Forgets his weariness, . 
And turns his feeble head 

To list its songs, that bless 
His spirit, like a stream 

Of mercy from on high. 
Of music in the dream 

That seals the prophet's eye. 

16 



182 POETICAL DECLAIMATIONS 

Oh ! laugh not at my words, 

To warn your childhood's hours ; 
Cherish the gentle birds, 

Cherish the fragile flowers ; 
For since man was bereft 

Of paradise, in tears, 
God the sweet things hath left, 

To cheer our eyes and ears. 



THE COLD WATER MAN. 

J. G. SAZE. 

There lived an honest fisherman — 
I knew him passing well — 

Who dwelt hard by a little pond, 
Within a little dell. 

A grave and quiet man was he. 
Who loved his hook and rod ; 

So even ran his line of life, 
His neighbors thought it odd. 

For science and for books, he said, 

He never had a wish ; 
No school to him was worth a fig. 

Except a " school" of fish. 

This single-minded fisherman 

A double calling had, — 
To tend his flocks, in winter-time; 

In summer, fish for shad. 

In short, this honest fisherman 

All other toils forsook ; 
And though no vagrant man was he, 

He lived by " hook and crook." 

All day that fisherman would sit 

Upon an ancient log. 
And gaze into the water, like 

Some sedentary frog. 

A cunning fisherman was he ; 

His angles all were right ; 
And, when he scratched his aged poll, 

You 'd know he 'd got a bite. 



AND RECITATIONS. 

To charm the fish he never spoke, 
Although his voice was fine ; 

He found the most convenient way- 
Was just to " drop a line." 

And many a " gudgeon" of the pond, 

If made to speak to-day, 
Would own, with grief, this angler had 

A mighty " taking way." 

One day, while fishing on the log, 
He mourned his want of luck ; 

When, suddenly, he felt a bite. 
And, jerking, caught a duck ! 

Alas ! that day the fisherman 

Had taken too much grog ; 
And being but a landsman, too. 

He couldn't " keep the log." 

In vain he strove with all his might, 
And tried to gain the shore ; — 

Down, down he went, to feed the fish 
He 'd baited oft before ! 

The moral of this mournful tale 
To all is plain and clear : — 

A single " drop too much " of rum 
May make a watery bier. 

And he who will not " sign the pledge," 

And keep his promise fast. 
May be, in spite of fate, a stiff 

Cold-water man at last. 



183 



THE MOTHER PRAYING. 

A. CUNNINGHAM. 

See, in, yon chamber's dim recesses, 
A lady kneels with loosened tresses ; 
A lovely creature, lowly kneeling, 
With mournful eyes, and brow of feeling ; 
One hand before her meekly spreading, 
The other, back her ringlets shedding, 



184 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

That aye come gushing down betwixt 

Her eyes and that on which they 're fixed. 

She shudders ! See ! Hear how she 's sighing ! 

Can one so young, so fair, be dying ? 

Is she some favorite saint imploring ? 

Confessing shame, or God adoring ? 

Her lustrous, dark eyes, wild are straying; 

She bows her head ; — lo ! she is praying. 

See, see ! before her, slumbering mild, 

A fair-haired and a faded child. 

He is her son ; — could any other 

Look with those rapt looks, save a mother ? 

That bosom, which seems nigh the bursting, 

Yon child was suckled, nestled, nurst in ; 

That heart, — to God outpoured, and offered, — 

Death, for her son, hath three times suffered. 

O ! of all mortal pangs, there 's nought 

So dreadful as the death of thought ! 

He wakes — he smiles — looks up — and there 

He rises — God hath heard her prayer ! 

Whilst she, 'tw^ixt sobbing, tears, and shrieking, 

Clasps him with heart too big for speaking. 

She holds him up to God. And now, 

Proud priest of Rome ! what canst thou do ? 

In all thy miracles, there 's nought 

Like that a mother's 'prayers have wrought. 



THANATOPSIS. 

W. C. BRYANT. 

To him who, in the love of Nature, holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; — for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides 
Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And gentle sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 
Of the last Hitter hour come like a blight 
Over thy spirit, and sad images 
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall. 
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart, — 



• AND RECITATIONS. 185 

Go forth under the open sky, and list 
To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 
Comes a still voice — Yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again ; 
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
To mix forever with the elements ; 
To be a brother to the insensible rock. 
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 
Yet not to thy eternal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone — nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, 
The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good, 
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun ; the vales, 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
The venerable woods ; rivers, that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks. 
That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man ! The golden sun, 
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven. 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce, 
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, 
Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there ! 
And millions in those solitudes, since first 
The flight of years began, have laid them do\vn 
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone ! — 
So shalt thou rest ; and what if thou shalt fall 
]6=^ 



186 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

Unnoticed by the living, and no friend 

Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 

Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase 

His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 

And make their bed with thee. As the long train 

Of ages glide away, the sons of men — 

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 

In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, 

The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles 

And beauty of its innocent age cut off — 

Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side, 

By those who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live, that when thy summons comes, to join 
The innumerable caravan, that moves 
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death. 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



CHILD RESCUED FROM THE EAGLE. 

S. S. ADVOCATE. 

An eagle in the zenith hung, 

And watched a babe's bright eyes, 

Then sudden stooped, and fiercely sprung 
Upon the beauteous prize. 

He seized him by a girdle, tied 

Around him loose and free ; 
See how they mount, and how they ride 

O'er land and stormy sea ! 

A while he hangs, then speeds his flight 
Swift as the lightning's wing ; 

And now upon the sea-rock's height 
Stands the proud feathered king. 



AND RECITATIONS. 187 

And here he drops the astonished child 

Amidst his own fierce brood ; 
The rock is rough, the nest is wild, 

And the cliff with bones is strewed. 

She comes ! she comes ! the pathless steep 

Cannot her flight deter ; 
She flies ! she flies ! for the angels keep, 

And the road is smooth for her. 

A shepherd had watched the eagle's way, 

And he told the mother the spot ; 
" O kneel," he cried, " and in agony pray, 

For m.ortal can save him not ! " 

But rapid as light, o'er precipice, height, 

And cavern and clifl* and hollow. 
Like an angel she flew, with a footstep true, 

Where the bravest could not follow. 

On, on, she flies, and her fire-bright eyes 

Are fixed on the babe : meanwhile 
He knoweth her well, and his heart doth swell, 

And his lips begin to smile. 

She is quivering now on the precipice brow ! 

She hath reached the eagle's nest ! 
The wild bird screams, and the lightning gleams, 

But the babe is on her breast. 

She stayed not to look, but her course she took 

Adown that perilous road : 
For the seraphim fleet directed her feet. 

And the lightning her pathway showed. 

O ! a mother's love is the mightiest thing 

That our sinful earth may boast ; 
It is swifter by far than the lightning's wing, 

And strong as an angel host. 

She is safe ! she is safe ! and her rescued dove 
Will be dreaming sweet dreams ere long. 

Of a ride above, and an angel of love, — 
O ! an angel swift and strong ! 



188 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

MY UNMARRIED AUNT. 

O. W. HOLMES. 

My aunt ! my dear unmarried aunt ! 

Long years have o'er her flown ; 
Yet still she strains the aching clasp 

That binds her virgin zone ; 
I know it hurts hex, — though she looks 

As cheerful as she can ; 
Her waist is ampler than her life, 

For life is but a span. 

My aunt ! my poor deluded aunt ! 

Her hair is almost gray ; 
Why will she train that winter curl 

In such a spring-like way ? 
How can she lay her glasses down, 

And say she reads as well, 
When, through a double convex lens, 

She just makes out to spell ? 

Her father — grandpapa ! forgive 

This erring lip its smiles — 
Vowed she would make the finest girl 

Within a hundred miles. 
He sent her to a stylish school ; 

'T was in her thirteenth June ; 
And with her, as the rules required, 

" Two towels and a spoon." 

They braced my aunt against a board. 

To make her straight and tall ; 
They laced her up, they starved her down. 

To make her light and small ; 
They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, 

They screwed it up with pins ; — 
O, never mortal suffered more 

In penance for her sins ! 

So, when my precious aunt was done. 

My grandsire brought her back ; 
(By daylight, lest some rabid youth 

Might follow on the track;) 
" Ah ! " said my grandsire, as he shook 

Some powder in his pan, 
" What could this lovely creature do 

Against a desperate man ? " 



AND RECITATIONS. 

Alas ! nor chariot, nor barouche, 

Nor bandit cavalcade, 
Tore from the father's trembling arms 

His all-accomplished maid. 
For her how happy had it been ! 

And heaven had spared to me 
To see one sad, ungathered rose 

On my ancestral tree. 



THE SEA. 

J. c . m'cabe 



Oh, had I my wish, in my pride I would be 

A wild careless rover upon the wide sea ! 

Oh, the glorious sea, with the proud dashing foam. 

Should be to the wanderer his fearless bark's home ! 

What though storm and tempest should sweep in their wrath 
On the waves of the deep ; and along my wild path, 
The fierce hissing lightning like serpents should twine, 
And the phosphoric billows should gloomily shine — 

Yet away, yet away, over breaker and wave, 
I would heedless dash, and their rude dangers brave ; 
Each feeling of fear in my bosom should sleep, 
As proudly my bark cut her way through the deep. 

Huzza for the sea ! the all glorious sea ! 

Its might is so wondrous, its spirit so free ! 

And its billows beat time to each pulse of my soul. 

Which, impatient, like them, cannot yield to control. 

Oh ! who would not live on the ocean so wide. 

When its billows look bright as the smile of a bride ? 

And who would not glory his vigils to keep, 

With the stars o'er his head, and around him — the deep ! 

'T was my cradle in childhood, that ocean so proud, 
And in death let me have its bright waves for my shroud ! 
Let no sad tears be shed, when I die, over me, 
But buiy me deep in the sea, — in the sea ! 



190 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

THE PEOPLE'S HYMN. 

ANONYMOUS. 

Up, brothers, up ! the light begins, 

Along the eastern sky, 
To promise that the night is past, 

And better days are nigh ; 
A clarion voice rings o'er the hills, 

The valleys catch the sound, 
And freedom is the stirring cry 

That fills the world around ! 

It pierces through the fading gloom, 

Its strength the peasant feels, 
And old oppression from its throne 

With shame and terror reels ; 
All men lift up their hearts and hands 

More fearless and more free, 
And loud ring out the common shout, 

No more we '11 bend the knee ! 

From smithy-forge, from fisher's cot, 

From ploughs that break the lea. 
From iron looms, from smoking mines, 

From ships that cleave the sea, 
One voice unites, and mightier 

Sweeps on, and ever on, — 
The tyrant's day, the vassal's work, 

Are gone, forever gone ! 

Up, brothers, up ! and share the light ; 

Rejoice, the day has come 
When freedom decks the lowest shrine. 

And guards the poorest home ; 
Rejoice, and pledge with strengthening ties 

The new-born heart and mind. 
To keep the boon, and pass it on 

To all of human kind. 

Rejoice, that ye have broke at length 

The thong and heavy chain. 
Which neither age nor human strength 

Can bind ye with again ! 
Rejoice, and swear ye will not bend. 

Nor give the guerdon back, 
Though glistening steel disputes the way, 

And flame is on your track ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 

BERNARDINE DU BORN. 

L. H. SiaOURNEY. 

King Henry sat upon his throne, 

And, full of wrath and scorn, 
His eye a recreant knight surveyed, 

Sir Bernardine Du Born. 
And he that haughty glance returned, 

Like lion in his lair, 
And loftily his unchanged brow 

Gleamed through his crisped hair. 

" Thou art a traitor to the realm ! 

Lord of a lawless band ! 
The bold in speech, the fierce in broil, 

The troubler of our land ! 
Thy castles and thy rebel towers 

Are forfeit to the crown ; 
And thou beneath the Norman axe 

Shall end thy base renown ! 

" Deign'st thou no word to bar thy doom, 

Thou with strange madness fired ? 
Hath reason quite forsook thy breast ?" 

Plantagenet inquired. 
Sir Bernard turned him towards the king, 

And blenched not in his pride ; 
" My reason failed, most gracious liege, 

The year Prince Henry died." 

Quick, at that name, a cloud of woe 

Passed o'er the monarch's brow ; 
Touched was that bleeding chord of love, 

To which the mightiest bow. 
And backward swept the tide of years ; 

Again his first-born moved ; 
The fair, the graceful, the sublime. 

The erring, yet beloved. 

And ever, cherished by his side. 

One chosen friend was near. 
To share in boyhood's ardent sport. 

Or youth's untamed career ; 
With him the merry chase he sought, 

Beneath the dewy morn. 
With him in knightly tourney rode 

This Bernardine du Born. 



191 



192 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

Then in the mourning father's soul 

Each trace of ire grew dim, 
And what his huried idol loved 

Seemed cleansed of guilt to him ; — 
And faintly through his tears he spoke, 

" God send his grace to thee I 
And, for the dear sake of the dead, 

Go forth, unscathed and free." 



VICTORY AT BRUNNENBURG. 

J. H. FRERE. 

The gates were then thrown open. 

And forth at once they rushed ; 
The outposts of the Moorish hosts 

Back to the camp were pushed ; 
The camp was all in tumult. 

And there was such a thunder 
Of cymbals and of drums, 

As if the earth would cleave in sunder. 

There you might see the Moors 

Arming themselves in haste, 
And the two main battles. 

How they were forming fast ; 
Horsemen and footmen mixed, 

A countless troop and vast. 
The Moors are moving forward, 

The battle soon must join, 
" My men, stand here in order, 

Ranged upon a line ! 
Let not a man move from his rank, 

Before I give the sign." 

Pero Bermuez heard the word. 

But he could not refrain ; 
He held the banner in his hand, 

He gave his horse the rein ; 
*' You see yon foremost squadron there, 

The thickest of the foes. 
Noble Cid, God be your aid. 

For there your banner goes ! 
Let him that serves and honors it 

Show the duty that he owes !" 



AND RECITATIONS. 

Earnestly the Cid called out, 

" For Heaven's sake, be still ! " 
Bermuez cried, " I cannot hold ! " 

So eager was his will. 
He spurred his horse, and drove him on, 

Amid the Moorish rout ; 
They strove to win the banner, 

And compassed him about ; 
Had not his armor been so true, 

He had lost either life or limb ; 
The Cid called out again, 

" For Heaven's sake, succor him ! " 

Their shields before their breasts, 

Forth at once they go. 
Their lances in the rest, 

Levelled fair and low ; 
Their banners and their crests 

Waving in a row, 
Their heads all stooping down. 

Towards the saddle bow. 
The Cid was in the midst, 

His shout was heard afar, 
" I am Rui Diaz, 

The champion of Bivar ! 
Strike amongst them, gentlemen. 

For sweet mercies' sake ! " 
Then where Bermuez fought 

Amidst the foe they brake ; 

Three hundred bannered knights. 

It was a gallant show ; 
Three hundred Moors they killed, 

A man at every blow ; 
When they wheeled and turned. 

As many more lay slain, 
You might see them raise their lances, 

And level them again. 
There you might see the breast-plates, 

How they were cleft in twain ; 
And many a Moorish shield 

Lay scattered on the plain. 
The pennons that were white. 

Marked with a crimson stain ; 
The horses running wild 

Whose riders had been slain. 
17 



193 



194 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

DARKNESS. 

G. G. BYRON. 

I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. 

The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars 

Did wander darkly in the eternal space, 

Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth " 

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air ; 

Morn came, and went — and came, and brought no day ; 

And men forgot their passions in the dread 

Of this their desolation ; and all hearts 

Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light : 

And they did live by watch-fires ; and the thrones, 

The palaces of crowned kings, the huts. 

The habitations of all things which dwell. 

Were burnt for beacons ; cities were consumed, 

And men were gathered round their blazing homes 

To look once more into each other's face ; 

Happy were those who dwelt within the eye 

Of the volcanos, and their mountain torch : 

A fearful hope was all the world contained ; 

Forests were set on fire — but hour by hour 

They fell and faded, and the crackling trunks 

Extinguished with a crash, and all was black. 

The brows of men, by the despairing light. 

Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits 

The flashes fell upon them : some lay down 

And hid their eyes and wept ; and some did rest 

Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled ; 

And others hurried to and fro, and fed 

Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up 

With mad disquietude on the dull sky. 

The pall of a past world ; and then again 

With curses cast them down upon the dust. 

And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked. 

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground. 

And flap their useless wings ; the wildest brutes 

Came tame and tremulous ; and vipers crawled 

And twined themselves among the multitude. 

Hissing, but stingless — they were slain for food ; 

And war, which for a moment was no more. 

Did glut himself again ; — a meal was bought 

With blood, and each sat sullenly apart 

Gorging himself in gloom ; no love was left ; 

All earth was but one thougfbt — and that was death. 



AND RECITATIONS. 

Immediate and inglorious ; and the pang 

Of famine, fed upon all entrails — men 

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh ; 

The meagre by the meagre were devoured ; 

Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one, 

And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 

The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, 

Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead 

Lured their lank jaws ; himself sought no food, 

But with a piteous and perpetual moan. 

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand 

Which answered not with a caress, he died. 

The crowd was famished by degrees ; but two 

Of an enormous city did survive, 

And they were enemies ; they met beside 

The dying embers of an altar-place, 

Where had been heaped a mass of holy things 

For an unholy usage ; they raked up, 

And shivering scraped, with their cold skeleton hands, 

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath 

Blew for a little life, and made a flame 

Which was a mockery ; then they lifted up 

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld 

Each other's aspects — saw, and shrieked, and died — 

Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 

Famine had written Fiend. The world was void ; 

The populous and the powerful was a lump, 

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless — 

A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay. 

The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still. 

And nothing stirred within their silent depths ; 

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, 

And their masts fell down piecemeal ; as they dropped. 

They slept on the abyss without a surge — 

The waves were dead ; the tides were in their grave ; 

The moon, their mistress, had expired before ; 

The winds were withered in the stagnant air. 

And the clouds perished ; Darkness had no need 

Of aid from them. She was the universe. 



195 



196 POETICAL DECLABIATIONS 

THE BARON'S LAST BANQUET. 

A. G. GREENE. 

O'ee. a low couch a setting sun 

Had thrown its latest ray, 
Where, in his last strong agony, 

A dying warrior lay, — 
The stern old Baron Rudiger, 

Whose frame had ne'er been bent 
By wasting pain, till time and toil 

Its iron strength had spent. 

" They come around me here, and say 

My days of life are o'er, — 
That I shall mount my noble steed 

And lead my band no more ; 
They come, and to my beard they dare 

To tell me now, that I, 
Their own liege lord and master born, — 

That I — ha ! ha ! — must die ! 

" And what is death ? I 've dared him oft 

Before the Paynim's spear, — 
Think ye he 's entered at my gate, 

Has come to seek me here ? 
I 'v^e met him, faced him, scorned him, 

When the fight was raging hot ; — 
I '11 try his might, — I '11 brave his power, — 

Defy, and fear him not ! 

" Ho ! sound the tocsin from the tower, — 

And fire the culverin ! — 
Bid each retainer arm with speed, — 

Call every vassal in ! 
Up with my banner on the wall ! — 

The banquet board prepare ! — 
Throw wide the portal of my hall. 

And bring my armor there ! " 

A hundred hands were busy then ; 

The banquet forth was spread 
And rang the heavy oaken floor 

With many a martial tread ; 
While from the rich, dark tracery. 

Along the vaulted wall. 
Lights gleamed on harness, plume, and spear, 

O'er the proud old Gothic hall. 



AND EECITATIONS. 197 

Fast hurrying through the outer gate, 

The mailed retainers poured 
On through the portal's frowning arch, 

And thronged around the board ; 
While at its head, within his dark. 

Carved oaken chair of state, 
Armed cap-a-pie, stern Rudiger, 

With girded falchion, sate. 

" Fill every beaker up, my men ! 

four forth the cheering wine ! 
There 's life and strength in every drop, — 

Thanksgiving to the vine ! 
Are ye all there, my vassals true ? — 

Mine eyes are waxing dim ; — 
Fill round, my tried and fearless ones, 

Each goblet to the brim ! 

" Ye 're there, but yet I see you not ! 

Draw forth each trusty sword, — 
And let me hear your faithful steel 

Clash once around my board ! 
I hear it faintly ; — louder yet ! — 

What clogs my heavy breath ? 
Up, all ! — and shout for Rudiger, 

' Defiance unto death ! ' " 

Bowl rang to bowl, steel clanged to steel, 

And rose a deafening cry, 
That made the torches flare around. 

And shook the flags on high : 
" Ho I cravens ! do ye fear him ? 

Slaves ! traitors ! have ye flown ? 
Ho ! cowards, have ye left me 

To meet him here alone ? 

" But I defy him ! — let him come ! " 

Down rang the massy cup. 
While from its sheath the ready blade 

Come flashing half-way up ; 
And with the black and heavy plumes 

Scarce trembling on his head. 
There, in his dark, carved, oaken chair. 

Old Rudiger sat — dead ! 
17=^ 



198 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



Hail, land of the mountain dominion ! 

Uplifting thy crest to the day 
Where the eagle is bathing his pinion 

In clouds that are rolling away. 
Oh, say, from the pilgrim descended, 
Who trampled on Albion's crown, 
Shall we by the cataracts splendid 
Refuse thee a wTeath of renown ? 
A wreath of renown from thy evergreen bough, 
Entwined with the oak that adometh thy brow ! 

What though on the mountains that bore us 

The fern in her loneliness waves ? — 
Our forefathers tilled them before us, 

And here will we dwell by their graves. 
And beloved of thy pure hearted daughters, 

Ever true to the brave and the free, 
We '11 drink of the gush of thy waters, 

That leap in the sun to the sea. 
Huzza ! to the rocks and the glens of the North ; 
Huzza ! to the torrents that herald them forth ! 

Peace to us is evermore singing 

Her songs on thy mountains of dew. 
While still at our altars are swinging 

The swords that our forefathers drew j 
But ah ! may we never unsheath them 

Again where the carnage awaits, 
But to our descendants bequeath them, 

To hang upon Liberty's gates. 
Encircled with garlands, as blades that were drawn 
By the hosts of the Lord, that have conquered and gone. 

All hail to thee. Mountain Dominion ! 

Whose flag in the cloud is unrolled. 
Where the eagle is straining his pinion, 

And dipping his plumage in gold ; 
We ask for no hearts that are truer. 

No spirits more gifted, than thine ; 
No skies that are warmer or bluer 

Than dawn on thy hemlock and pine. 
Ever pure are thy breezes, that herald thee forth, 
Green land of my father ! thou Rock of the North ! 



AND RECITATIONS. 199 

PROGRESS OF LIBERTY. 

G. D. PRENTICE. 

Weep not that Time 
Is passing on, — it will ere long reveal 
A brighter era to the nations. Hark ! 
Along the vales and mountains of the earth 
There is a deep, portentous murmuring. 
Like the swift rush of subterranean streams, 
Or like the mingled sounds of earth and air. 
When the fierce tempest, with sonorous wing, 
Heaves his deep folds upon the rushing winds. 
And hurries onward, with his night of clouds. 
Against the eternal mountains. 'T is the voice 
Of infant Freedom, — and her stirring call 
Is heard and answered in a thousand tones 
From every hill-top of her western home ; 
And lo ! it breaks across old Ocean's flood, — 
And " Freedom ! Freedom ! " is the answering shout 
Of nations, starting from the spell of years. 
The day-spring ! — see ! 't is brightning in the heavens ! 
The watchmen of the night have caught the sign, — 
From tower to tower the signal-fires flash free, — 
And the deep watchword, like the rush of seas 
That heralds the volcano's bursting flame. 
Is sounding o'er the earth. Bright years of hope 
And life are on the wing ! — Yon glorious bow 
Of Freedom, bended by the hand of God, 
Is spanning Time's dark surges. Its high arch, 
A type of Love and Mercy on the cloud. 
Tells that the many storms of human life 
Will pass in silence, and the sinking waves. 
Gathering the forms of glory and of peace. 
Reflect the undimmed brightness of the heavens. 



A PARODY. 

S. S. GREENE. 



You 'd scarce expect one of my age 
To plead for temperance on the stage ; 
And should I chance to fall below 
Portraying all the drunkard's woe. 



200 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

Don't view me with a critic's eye, 
Nor pass my simple story by. 
Large streams from little fountains flow, 
Great sots from moderate drinkers grow ; 
So, though I now am small and young. 
No rum shall ever touch my tongue. 
Let all the boys and girls, like me, 
From liquor pledge they will be free ; 
Then will not our Columbia's soil 
Surpass by far the Emerald Isle ? 
Yes ! Ireland then will be outdone. 
And every land beneath the sun. 
These thoughts inspire my youthful mind 
To banish grog-shops from mankind, — 
Those shops that stain our land with blood. 
By pouring forth a poisonous flood, 
Yet claim to be a " public good." 

Come ! soldiers, then, come one and all ! 
And listen to the temperance call : 
We '11 make our army large and strong ; 
We '11 sign the pledge, and sing the song ; 
Our banners wave, spread wide the truth ; — 
Rum can't repel the attacks of youth. 

The way to do we know quite well, — 

We '11 neither make, nor buy, nor sell ; 

We will not put it to our lips ; 

We won't import in our ships ; 

Our steamboats, railroads, cars, and stages. 

Shall never thrive by Alcohol's wages ; 

No store of ours shall be employed 

To make a place for rum to hide. 

We '11 search him out where'er he lurks ; 

Nor will we be rumsellers' clerks. 

Though it should make the grog men frantic, 
We '11 drive him back across the Atlantic, 
And keep him going back and forth. 
From east to west, from south to north, 
Till, worn and wearied, without rest. 
And, listening to our last request. 
This raging, foaming, murderous elf 
Jumps overboard and drowns himself. 



AND RECITATIONS. 201 

THE PRAIRIE COTTAGE. 

J. H. SCOTT. 

A COTTAGE on the prairie ! 

'T is a wild and lonely thing ; 
The south wind wanders through its rooms 

With softly fluttering wing ; 
The brightest sunbeams kiss the vines 

That clothe its lowly eaves, 
And many a plaintive warbler 

'Mid its woodbine arbors grieves. 

It stands beside a running stream, 

With green and sloping banks, 
'And in its rear tall forest trees 

Present their waving ranks ; 
While far beyond as sight may reach, 

With undulating sway, 
The prairie like some broad lake sweeps 

In waves of light away. 

Our home upon the prairie ! 

Though rude and dull it seem. 
Time passes 'neath its humble roof 

Like an Eden-tinted dream; 
For love doth bind with rosy chain 

The hearts that dwell within. 
And love hath e'er a pleasant voice 

Wherewith from care to win. 

The cottage of the prairie ! 

There is no spot on earth 
So dear as this, our cabin home. 

With its broad and cheerful hearth ! 
We pray that God may never let 

Our footsteps from it stray. 
But make our graves, our pleasant graves, 

Where nature's fountains play. 



THE SKATER'S SONG. 

E. PEABODY. 

Away ! away ! — our fires stream bright 

Along the frozen river. 
And their arrowy sparkles of brilliant light 

On the forest branches quiver. 



202 POETICAL DECLAJMATIONS 

Away ! away ! for the stars are forth, 
And on the pure snows of the valley, 

In a giddy trance, the moonbeams dance ; 
Come, let us our comrades rally. 

Away ! away ! o'er the sheeted ice, 

Away, away, we go ; 
On our steel-bound feet we move as fleet 

As deer o'er the Lapland snow. 
What though the sharp north winds are out, 

The skater heeds them not ; 
Midst the laugh and shout of the joyous rout, 

Gray winter is forgot. 

'T is a pleasant sight, the joyous throng, 

In the light of the reddening flame. 
While with many a wheel on the ringing steel 

They wage their riotous game ; 
And though the night-air cutteth keen. 

And the white moon shineth coldly. 
Their homes, I ween, on the hills have been, — 

They should breast the strong blast boldly. 

Let others choose more gentle sports, 

By the side of the winter's hearth, 
Or at the hall, or the festival, 

Seek for their share of mirth ; 
But as for me, away, away, 

Where the merry skaters be, 
Where the fresh wind blows and the smooth ice glows, 

There is the place for me ! 



THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD. 

CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE AND JOURNAL. 

Beside her mother, sat a darling child. 

Wasted by sickness, from whose cheek the bloom 
Had passed away : her large blue eyes, as mild 

And soft — as lovely as the sky in June, 

Were fixed upon the morning star, so soon, 
Like her own life, to melt in glorious day ; 

And as its pale beams trembled in the room. 
Her heart throbbed wildly, for they seemed to say 
In whispers, to her spirit, " Come with us away ! " 



AND RECITATIONS. 



203 



" Mother, dear mother, lift my Vv^eary head, 
And lay it gently on your own dear breast ; 

Now kiss me, mother — let your smiles be shed 
Upon my heart ; for soon your child will rest, 
Far from thy care, with saints and angels blest ; 

For I have had a dream of that bright land 

Where spirits dwell ; and like the golden west 

At sunset was the glory of the band I saw, 

And soon shall with them near the Saviour stand. 

" See, mother, that bright star is almost gone ! 

It wears to me a blissful smile, and fain 
My aching heart would have it live — it shone 

So sweetly on it that it hushed its pain. 

Come, lift me up, and let me see again 
Its mellow light before it dies, and sing — 

I feel so well — the little hymn, the same 
You taught me, months ago, that e'er would bring 
Our souls so near to heaven as on an unseen wing." 

The mother's heart was lifted up in prayer. 

As rose the infant voice upon her ear ; 
The note hung quivering on the balmy air, 

Like that of some sweet birdling, soft and clear ; 

While round the child, dispelling every fear, 
Came floating visions from the land her dream 

Had pictured to her happy soul so near ; 
Then, as the song poured forth, the warbled theme 
But seemed an anthem echoed from a brighter scene. 

She stopped, her head drooped low ; the trembling strain 

Was broken where the gushing melody 
Was softly lingering on the hallowed name 

Whose praises angels sound eternally. 

Quicldy the mother sunk upon her Imee, 
And from her sno^vy forehead threw the long 

Dark tresses, and gazed upon her wildly ; 
The note seemed fluttering yet upon her tongue ; 
But she was dead — her heart had broken with her song! 



THE PRESENT AGE. 

M. A. LIVEE.MORE. 

Back has rolled the murky darkness 
Which the buried Past enshrouds. 

And light from heaven is piercing 
Through its densely folded clouds ; 



204 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS 

Brighter than the brightest sunrise, 
Fairer than the fairest dawn, 

Is the advent of the era 

Which to present man is born. 

Loud its trumpet voice is pealing, 

Startling all the earth and sky, 
Floating through the azure arches 

That o'erhang us from on high. 
Echoing in increasing fulness 

To the heaven's furthest span — 
God, the Father, hath created 

Brethren all the race of man ! 

Glance across the outstretched present, 

Quickened with intensest life, 
Which, a field of bloodless battle. 

Echoes with tumultuous strife, 
Where the sons of Truth enlisted. 

Bold and fearless warfare wage. 
With the tall, gigantic evils. 

Which oppress the struggling age. 

Flashing as the summer lightnings 

Are their bold and earnest words, 
Which enfold, like burnished scabbards, 

Truths as keen as two-edged swords ; 
And they move in dauntless phalanx, 

Knowing not to turn or yield, 
Trusting in the certain victory 

Of the weapons which they wield. 

Where the arguments of error 

Are upcast against the right, 
Ossa mounted upon Pelion, 

Toppling in their dizzy height, 
There do arms and hearts Herculean 

Wrestle with the pile uncouth, 
And the fabric overthrowing. 

Found a monument to Truth. 

Not alone are heard the tumult. 
And the warring conflict's din. 

For when fainter swells the clamor,_ 
Sweeter sounds are chiming in ; — 



AND RECITATIONS. 205 

Kindness, exorcising evil, 

By her spell of potent power ; 
Love and Truth, mankind encircling 

With the bliss which is their dower. 

Up ! it is a glorious era ! 

Never yet has dawned its peer ! 
Up ! and work ! and then a nobler 

In the future shall appear ; 
" Onward ! " is the present's motto^ 

To a larger, higher life ; 
" Onward ! " though the march be weary, 

Though unceasing be the strife. 

Pitch not here thy tent, for higher 

Doth the bright ideal shine. 
And the journey is not ended 

Till thou reach that height divine ; 
Upward ! and above earth's vapors, 

Glimpses shall to thee be given. 
And the fresh and odorous breezes, 

Of the very hills of heaven. 



FOREST HYMN. 

W. C. BRYANT. 



Father, thy hand 
Hath reared these venerable columns ; thou 
Did§t weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down 
Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose 
All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun. 
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze. 
And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow, 
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died 
Among their branches ; till, at last, they stood, 
As now they stand, massy and tall and dark, 
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold 
Communion with his Maker. 

Thou art in the soft winds 
That run along the summits of these trees 
In music ; thou art in the cooler breath, 
That, from the inmost darkness of the place. 
Comes, scarcely felt ; the barky trunks, the ground — 
The fresh moist ground — are all instinct with thee. 
18 



206 POETICAL DECLABIATIONS 

Here is continual worship ; nature, here, 

In the tranquillity that thou dost love, 

Enjoy thy presence. Noiselessly, around, 

From perch to perch, the solitary bird 

Passes ; and yon clear spring, that midst its herbs 

Wells softly forth, and visits the strong roots 

Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale 

Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left 

Thyself without a witness, in these shades, 

Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace, 

Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak — 

By whose immovable stem I stand and seem 

Almost annihilated — not a prince. 

In all the proud old world beyond the deep, 

E'er wore his croAvn as loftily as he 

Wears the green coronal of leaves with which 

Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root 

Is beauty such as blooms not in the glare 

Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower, 

With scented breath, and look so like a smile, 

Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, 

An emanation of the indwelling life, 

A visible token of the upholding love, 

That are the soul of this wide universe. 

My heart is awed within me, when I think 
Of the great miracle that still goes on, 
In silence, round me — the perpetual work 
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed 
Forever. Written on thy works I read 
The lesson of thy eternity. 

Oh ! from the sterner aspects of thy face,- 
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath 
Of the mad unchained elements to teach 
Who rules them ! Be it ours to meditate, 
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty, 
And to the beautiful order of thy works 
Learn to conform the order of our lives. 



AND RECITATIONS. 207 

THE CLOSING YEAR. 

a. D. PRENTICE, 

'T IS midnight's holy hour — and silence now 

Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er 

The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 

The bell's deep tones are swelling ; — 't is the knell 

Of the departed year. No funeral train 

Is sweeping past, — yet, on the stream and wood, 

With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest 

Like a pale, spotless shroud ; the air is stirred 

As by a mourner's sigh — and on yon cloud. 

That floats so still and placidly through heaven. 

The spirits of the seasons seem to stand, — 

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, 

And Winter with his aged locks, — and breathe. 

In mournful cadences that come abroad. 

Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail. 

Gone from the Earth forever. 

'T is a time 
For memory and for tears. Within the deep. 
Still chambers of the heart, a spectre dim. 
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of time, 
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold 
And solemn finger to the beautiful 
And holy visions that have passed away. 
And left no shadow of their loveliness 
On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts 
The coffin-lid of hope, and joy, and love ; 
And, bending mournfully above the pale. 
Sweet forms, that slumber there, scatters dead flowers 
O'er what has passed to nothingness. The year 
Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng 
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, 
Its shadow in each heart. 

In its swift course 
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful. 
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand 
Upon the strong man, — and the haughty form 
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. 
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged 
The bright and joyous, — and the tearful wail 
Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song 
And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er 



208 POETICAL DECLAMATIONS AND RECITATIONS. 

The battle plain, where sword, and spear, and shield, 
Flashed in the light of mid-day, — and the strength 
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, 
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above 
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came, 
And faded, like a wreath of mist at eve ! 
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, 
It heralded its millions to their home 
In the dim land of dreams. 

Remorseless Time ! 
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe ! — What power 
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt 
His iron heart to pity ? On, still on. 
He presses, and forever. The proud bird, 
The condor of the Andes, that can soar 
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave 
The fury of the northern hurricane. 
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home. 
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down 
To rest upon his mountain crag, — but Time 
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness. 
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind 
His rushing pinions. Revolutions sweep 
O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast 
Of dreaming sorrow, — cities rise and sink 
Like bubbles on the water, — fiery isles 
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back 
To their mysterious caverns, — mountains rear 
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow 
Their tall heads to the plain, — new empires rise. 
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, 
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche. 
Startling the nations, — and the very stars, 
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God, 
Glitter a while in their eternal depths. 
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train. 
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away 
To darkle in the trackless void, — yet, Time, 
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career. 
Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not. 
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path. 
To sit and muse, like other conquerors. 
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought. 



DIALOGUES 

FAMILIAR AND DRAMATIC, 



THE BEAUTY OF PIETY. 





S. C. EDGARTON. 






PRIESTESS OF NATURE. 




FLORA, 


TERRESTRIA, 


OCEANA, 


AERIA, 


CHRYSOLINE, 


METEORA, 


PSYCHE, 


CHRISTINA, 


CELESTIA. 



[The Priestess stands alone, with one arm leaning on her altar.] 

Priestess. Here is my altar, naked — and I a Priestess ! 
Why come they not, those gentle messengers whom I sent 
abroad to bring me the pure and beautiful things of earth ? 
Has the glory of this world departed, that they linger thus in 
its pursuit ? Nay, not all departed, for here cometh Flora, 
the queen of a radiant realm. 

Flora. 
All hail, sweet Priestess ! I have wandered long. 
But the dear flowers were sleeping in their graves ; 
Only a few, from all the beauteous throng, 
Have wakened at the song of spring's wild waves. 
Those few I bring thee, from their far retreat. 
An offering for thine altar, pure and sweet. 

Priestess. Bless thee. Flora ! They shall lie there, as 
beautiful tokens of thy faithful ministries to man. Thou 
makest the earth radiant for his footsteps ; and the rugged 
scenes along his pilgrimage are decked with beauty by thy 
gentle hand. Bless thee, Flora, for thy fragrant offering. 
Hast thou aught to ask in return ? 
13* 



210 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR , 

Flora. 
Sweet Priestess, I would have thee deal 
With man's unthinking, senseless heart, 
And waken there a sense to feel 
The humble beauty I impart ; 
And so my own poor works control 
That they may purify his soul. 

Priestess. Stand here, by my altar. Thou shalt not lose 
thy reward ; but Terrestria approacheth now, bearing also a 
gift. What hast thou found of the beautiful, in thy dim 
domains, thou queen of the under-world ? 

Terrestria. 
Priestess, I have brought thee gems ! 
Weave them into diadems 
For those brows where human thought 
Its divinest charm has wrought. 
They are beautiful and bright, 
Eobed in rays of glorious light ; 
Take them, Priestess, they are thine — 
Let them rest upon thy shrine. 

Priestess. Pure, beautiful are they, Terrestria, and man 
loves to hoard them up in caskets, and woman to entwine them 
upon her brow. For thy gift what reward wilt thou have ? 

Terrestria. 
Priestess, temper woman's heart, 
By thine own redeeming art ; 
Make these gems to her soft eye 
Teachers of meek purity ; 
Keep her heart from foolish pride. 
Innocent, and sanctified ; 
Make her see, in all things bright, 
Rays of spiritual light. 
Ere I seek my mountain-cave. 
Priestess, this dear boon I crave. 

Priestess. Stand at the altar, by Flora's side, and I will 
remember thy request. Another messenger has entered — 
Oceana, the daughter of the sea. She is a merry queen. 

Oceana. 
The sea ! — from the bright bine sea I come ! 
There is my own wild miirnuiring home ; 



AND DRAMATIC. 211 

I have chased the dolphin along the main, 
And followed the nautilus all in vain. 
I sought to bring to thine altar here 
A nereid's smile and a mermaid's tear ; 
But they fled away to their sparry cells, 
So I filled my basket with simple shells. 

Priestess. Thy shells are very beautiful, and they have a 
moan of music from the sea. Men have gazed upon their 
varied and exquisite forms, and children have held them to 
their ears, and listened to their low and dreamy songs. Name 
a recompense, and it shall be thine. 

Oceana. 
Oh grant, sweet Priestess, that children may learn, 
From the moan of the shell, how their spirits will yearn, 
Should they wander astray from the dwelling of truth. 
For those far-away homes of their innocent youth. 
Let them look on the Harps with wondering eyes, 
And ask whence the Conch-shell hath borrowed her dyes. 
Let them marvel, and study, and take to their hearts, 
The beautiful lesson the ocean imparts ; 
Then pearl-shell and coral sweet wisdom shall teach, 
As their merry young feet ramble over the beach. 
This boon, gentle Priestess, is all that I ask — 
So I '11 hie me away to my every-day task. 

Priestess. Tarry a while, gentle Oceana. Stand around 
the altar, with thy sisters, and wait till after the other messen- 
gers have returned. Then will I grant the boon. Behold, one 
Cometh now. Welcome, fair Chrysoline ! 

Chrysoline. 
Thou didst send me forth for beauty. 
And I wandered long and far ; 
But in vain I toiled for duty, — 
'Twas like reaching for a star ! 

For the beautiful things 

Of my realm have wings, 
And they flitted before my steps ; 

Not one could I see. 

Save the sweet little bee. 
Flying off' with the dew on his lips. 

Priestess. It is well, Chrysoline. Let the beautiful things 
of thy realm go free. Suffer them to enjoy life, happiness, 



'212 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

employment. Nevertheless thou shalt not lose thy reward. 
What wilt thou ask ? 

Chrysoline. 
I will ask that the butterfly's beauty, 

And the skill of the brown buzzmg bee, 
Teach lessons of wisdom and duty, 

No less than the shells of the sea ; — 
No less than the gems that are shining 

So bright on thine altar to-night ; 
Or the flov/ers that around it are twining 

In fragrance, in beauty and light. 

Priestess. What hast thou brought, Aeria ? 

Aeria. 
O beautiful songs have I heard to-day 
From the larks that stood on the budding spray ; 
And radiant plumage and golden crests 
Glanced to and fro by the new-made nests ; 
And glad should I be could I bring thee here 
The beautiful birds of the early year. 
But it may not be, for the birds are shy, 
And they love the fields of the bright blue sky. 
The game of the hunter I w^ould not bring, 
Nor lay on thine altar a bloody thing ; 
So, beautiful Priestess, I left them free 
To flit about on the greenwood tree ; 
And the only favor I dare bespeak 
Is a watchful eye and a spirtt meek, 
For those who roam through the fields of spring. 
And mark the birds on the buoyant wing. 
O, may they learn from their daily songs 
What joy to an innocent heart belongs, 
And see how happy the simplest thing 
Is made by the love of the guardian King ! 

Priestess. It is a holy request, Aeria. Go, join thy sisters 
at the altar. And here come two other ministers of the 
beautiful — Meteora and Celestia. Have ye brought ofTerings 
for my shrine ? 

Meteora. 
I saw a rainbow in the sky — 

Celestia. 
And I a star — 



AND DRAMATIC. 213 

Meteora. 
I saw a radiant cloud float by, 

Like some brigiit, air-borne car — 

Celestia. 
I saw sweet Venus far away 
O'er a wild mountain — 

Meteora. 
And I a rainbow in the spray 
Of a clear sunny fountain. 

Celestia. 
I could not bring the stars to earth — 

Meteora. 
Nor I the lightnings of the north — 

Both. 
But we have brought report to thee 
Of glories in that upper sea, 
And pray thee to direct the love 
Of human hearts to things above ; 
To the bright stars, and to the clouds, 
And to the faint and viewless crowds, 
Whose shadows form the galaxy 
That spreads along the bending sky. 
That men may love the pure and bright, 
And trace out beauty in the night. 

Priestess. All this shall be done. Wait with patience, 
for another messenger is here — sweet, thoughtful Psyche. 
Hast thou found anything beautiful ? 

Psyche. 
Oh Priestess ! ne'er hath human eye, 
In earth, or sea, or star-gemmed sky. 
Discerned so marvellous a thing 
As that which now to thee I bring. 
Priestess, it is a human soul — 
A silver chord — a golden bowl — 
The light that glorifies the earth — 
A spirit of undying birth — 



214 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

A Star — a gem — a sweet-toned lyre — 
Man's ever-lighted incense fire — 
The only link 'twixt earth and heaven — 
A thing that shis and is forgiven. 
This have I brought, but it is mine ; — 
I lay it on no earthly shrine ; 
No human power can e'er control 
The movements of the human soul. 

Priestess. Psyche, thou art right. Here upon my altar lie 
three gifts, beautiful, pure, but without life. All that is spir- 
itual disdains to be brought down to an earthly shrine. But 
a messenger cometh, who will tell what alone of thee is truly 
beautiful. Listen to Christina. 

Chrisii?ia. 

Priestess, I wandered at thy will, 

To seek, in earth and air, 
What to my spirit's eye might seem 

Most lovely and most fair. 

I sav/ the flowers, the gems, the shells, 

I saw the stars and clouds. 
The insects and the singing birds. 

That came and went in crowds. 

I saw the wondrous human soul — 

A soul with gems impearled. 
And 'mid them there the loveliest thing 

In all this glorious world. 

The soul were faint and very dark 

Without this radiant guest ; 
It is the light, the joy, the peace, 

Of every human breast. 

Sweet Priestess, know ye where or what 

This beauteous thing may be ? 
'T is found in every pure young heart — 

Named early Piety. 

But, Priestess, not unto thy shrine 

May I this offering bring ; 
It goeth up from human souls 

To heaven's eternal King. 



AND DRAMATIC. 215 

Priestess. Thou hast spoken truth, Christina. To God 
belongeth the purest thing of his great universe. And since 
some boon is merited by thee, for the wisdom of thy choice, I 
will give thee a ministry over human souls, to work upon 
them, by the spell of this beautiful thing which thou hast 
chosen, the gifts which have been desired of me by the sisters 
who surround the altar. Through the influence of piety they 
shall see beauty and purity in the flowers and gems, in the 
insects and birds, in the sea and in the sky, and all around and 
abroad in the glorious universe ; and the purest offerings of 
every heart shall be brought to the holy altar of the living God. 



THE SEASONS. 

ANONYMOUS. 

Winter. 
From Hyperborean realms of snow, 
Where tempests growl and icebergs grow, 
Old Winter comes to meet you. 

Spring. 
When stern old Winter has closed his reign, 
And earth and sky look glad again, 
Sweet Spring comes to meet you. 

Winter. 
The earth grows pale as I draw near. 
The waters blend, and the leaves grow sear, 
And hearts of men are quailing. 

Spring. 

I come where the bahniest breezes blow, 
With radiant beauty all things glow. 
With ravishing scenes regaling. 

Summer. 

From the land of the orange, the myrtle, the palm. 
Where the earth in its verdure forever is drest, 

Where the groves waft rich spices, and flowers distil balm, 
I come, to rekindle new joy in each breast. 



216 DIALOGUES FABIILIAR 

Spring. 
Lovely, lovely, is the scene. 
When Spring decks her fields in green 

Summer. 
Swiftly, swiftly, speed the hours, 
In cooling shade and summer bowers. 

Autumn. 
Happy, happy, is the tone. 
When the reapers shout the harvest home. 

Winter. 
Merrily, merrily, ring the bells 
O'er Winter's snow-clad hills and dales. 

Spring. 
Cruel Winter ! but for thee, 
O ! how happy I should be ! 

Summer. 
Longer I should make my stay, 
But for Autumn's ruder sway. 

Autumn. 
Blame not Autumn ; 't is his task, ^ 
To save you from the winter. 

Winter. 
Cease, ye Seasons, to complain, 
Or longer yet shall be my reign ! 

Spring, Summer, and Autumn, 
Relentless Winter ! but for thee 

! how happy I should be ! 

Spring. 

1 love the birds' first notes to hear. 

Summer. 
I love to see their young appear. 

Autumn. 
I love to give them merry cheer. 



AND DRAMATIC. 217 

Winter. 
I love with frost to greet them. 
Spring. 
Sweet smell the flowers at dawn of day. 

Summer. 
Sweet is the breath of the new-mown hay. 

Autumn. 
Sweet are the fruits I store away. 
Winter. 
'T is sweeter yet to eat them. 

Spring. 
Spring leaves this bouquet, with her thanks to you all. 

Summer. 
And Summer her plums and berries, though small. 

Autumn. 
And Autumn a basket of fruit from his hoard. 

Winter. 
And Winter, old Winter sweeps all from the board. 

Spring, Summer, and Autumn. 

Winter, Winter ! but for thee, 
O ! how happy I should be ! 



UNGROUNDED SUSPICIONS. 

child's &OSPEL GUIDE. 
THREE BOYS CHARLES, WILLIAM, AND FRANK. 

Charles. John White is the meanest boy that I ever skw ! 

William. Why, what now ? What has John done to you, 
that you should accuse him so harshly ? 

Charles. Done ! he 's done everything. He is so ugly, I 
don't see how he lives ! 

William. But what has he done ? It is not right to talk 
so about one of your school-mates, without telling the cause ; 
you might cause others to think him much worse than he is. 
Say, what dreadful thing has he done ? 
19 



218 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Charles. He has stolen my new skates, and my nice silver 
pencil, that uncle James gave me last summer. He has 
stolen them hoth. 

William. It seems to me, Charles, that you must be mis- 
taken, John White is a scholar in our school, and I am slow 
to believe that he will steal. I have never known any of our 
scholars to do a thing so bad. 

Charles. I don't believe that story. I '11 bet I can tell you 
of more than a dozen of your school that will steal. Any how, 
John White has stolen, and I can prove it. 

William. Well, if you can prove it, I shall have to give in 
that he is guilty. But how can you prove it ? 

Charles. Bill Frost saw him have the skates on. 

William. But they might have been some other skates ; 
perhaps he has got some new ones. 

Charles. No ; Bill said he knew they were mine ; and I 
have no doubt but he has got my pencil too, for I missed it 
this very morning, and last night he was with me at the 
lecture, and I thought I felt him put his hand into my pocket. 

William. Well, Charles, it may be so, but I cannot believe 
that John is so bad a boy. He is in my class every day, and 
I never saw anything bad in him in my life. 

Charles. I don't think he is any better for being in your 
class; I know of a great many bad boys that go to your 
school. 

Williain. Will you tell me who they are ? I am sure I 
never knew that we had one bad boy in school. Will you 
tell their names ? 

Charles. There is John White, for one ; and there is — 
there is — there 's a great many 

William. Well, who are they ? If you know there is a 
great many, you can tell who some of them are. 

Charles. No matter who they are ! I know them, and 
that 's enough. But here comes Frank Rice. I wonder 
whose skates he 's got there in his hand. 

[Enter Frank.] 

Frank. Good-evening, boys. I 've brought your skates 
home, Charles. 

Charles. My skates ! Where did you get them ? How 
came you by them ? 

Frank. Why, don't you know ? Your father lent them to 
me yesterday. He said you would have no time to skate till 
this evening, and I might take them, if I would be sure to 
bring them back this evening in season for you. 

Charles. But what did you let John White have them for ? 
I heard he had them to-day. 



AND DRAMATIC. 219 

Frank. That was a mistake, Charles. John has not seen 
them, and he would not have wanted them, if he had, for he 
has got a new pair of his own. 

William. There ! what think you now, Charles, about John 
White ? Do you think him the ugliest hoy in the world, as 
you said just now ? 

Charles. Well, it seems he did not steal my skates ; but I 
know he has got my pencil, any haw. 

William. Don't be so sure, Charles ; you may be mistaken 
in that also ; I think you are. 

Frank. What is it about his pencil ? I found one, just 
down below here. Have you lost your pencil, Charles ? 

Charles. Yes, John White stole it out of my pocket last 
night. 

Frank. What kind of pencil was it ? 

Charles. It was a small silver pencil, with a red stone in 
the end of it. 

Frank. [Takes out the pencil.] Is that it, Charles ? 

Charles. Yes, that is the very pencil. Where did you find 
it? 

Frank. Just this side of Lyceum Hall. 

Charles. There, I Imow when I lost it. I '11 bet I pulled it 
out of my pocket when I took out my mittens. 

William. Charles, do you not feel ashamed of yourself, for 
accusing John White so unjustly and wickedly. 

Charles. Yes, I do. But then I certainly thought he had 
stolen them. 

Frank. John White steal ! I am astonished that you 
should ever think of such a thing. He is one of the best and 
most conscientious boys in the world. We have no thieves 
in our school. 

William. So I have told him, but he would not believe 
me. He says he knows of a great many bad boys in our 
school. 

Frank. Can he tell us who they are ? 

William. I asked him that, and he began to tell, and 
got so far as John White — he could not name another 
one. 

Charles. I own I was wrong to accuse John White so; 
but I certainly thought he had got both my skates and my 
pencil. 

William. Do you not see how much injury you might have 
done him, by going round and repeating that story ? Some 
people might have believed it, and called that good boy a 
thief. Have you told any one else about it ? 



220 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Charles. Yes, I told two or three boys, but I guess they 
did not believe it. 

Frank. Well, Charles, if you are an honest fellow, you 
will go right to those boys, and tell them you was wrong and 
John White innocent. 

Charles. Yes, I will go. I hope John will not hear of this, 
he would be so mad with me. 

Frank. No, he would not be mad. He is too good a boy. 
He would feel grieved, but his innocence would make him 
happy. ^ 

William. I hope, Charles, this will be a good lesson to you. 
Never accuse another of any wrong, until you know he is 
guilty. I wish you now to say, if you really know a single 
bad boy in my school. 

Charles. No, I do not. I was mad when I said there was 
a great many bad boys there. I did n't know much what I 
was saying. 

Willia7n. If, then, you feel that all in our school are good 
children, I hope you will soon become one of our happy 
number. [Aii go out.] 



ON CHATTING. 

E. A. BACON. 
TWO GIRLS IRENE AND OLIVIA. 

Irene, O dear, dear! this constant chit, chat, chatting, from 
morning till night ! it wearies me to death ! At home and 
abroad, it is constantly ringing in my ears. The very birds 
seem to catch the contagion, for all up and down the street 
they swing in their wire prisons, and keep up a constant chat- 
ting with each other. O dear ! [Sighing.] 

Olivia. What ! is that you, Irene, crying out against your 
own peculiar grace ? 

Irene. My own peculiar besetting sin, I would rather you 
would call it, if I too must be classed with the chatterer ; but 
rather than that should come to pass, I'd hold salt in my 
mouth for a week. 

Olivia. Why, Irene ! What a mood you are in ! Do cleai 
up before I have my party, for I am depending upon your 
delightful chat to enHven the occasion. 

Irene. Well, you will be obliged to forego that entertain- 
ment, for my mind is fully made up to indulge in it no more. 
How foolish it is ! Here I can seem to see a whole room full 



AND DRAMATIC. 221 

now, buzz, buzz, buzzing, and not one of them saying anything 
worth remembering half a minute. 

Olivia. Well, you are queer ! For my part, I think chat- 
ting the very spice of life. The spice ? Yes, a great deal 
more, — the extract double distilled. 

Irene. Call it the "Otto of Kose," — that will hit it, for 
you can hardly raise the cork before it is evaporated. 

Olivia. Yes, the Otto of Rose ! I like that, for after it 
has evaporated, the phial is worth its weight in gold for 
months after, for its delightful fragrance. 

Irene. O, you need not turn it so, for no fragrance could be 
gathered from a whole day full of chattering. 

Olivia. Do you think so ? Well, suppose I exclude from 
my party all chattering ; no, I would not go so far as to say 
from my party, but from home. 

Irene. Mercy me ! I wish such an order of events might 
be brought about ; then there would be such a thing as com- 
mon sense in the world. 

Olivia. Well, let 's see. You 'd rise in the morning, and go 
about the house mum, taking for granted that every one was 
well, without passing the compliment ; breakfast would pass 
silently, unless some one had wisdom enough to discourse on 
the steam and the philosophy of cooking ; you 'd go to school 
looking grim to everybody; con your lessons because you had 
to get them ; go home, mope about, and then in the evening 
— 0,1 can't think of that ! deliver me from the evening circle 
where small talk is excluded ! O, the delightful fireside chat ! 
it makes my heart warm to think of it. 

Irene. Well, sometimes, perhaps, it is well ; but to your 
party now ; why can't you get along without this continual 
small talk ? 

Olivia. Small talk ! Why, it 's like the small rain, which 
the good-natured poet says 

Loves to come at night, 

To make you wonder, in the morn, 

What made the earth so bright. 

Irene. O dear, how sentimental ! I 'm sure you will not 
find me very bright after your party, if you 're going to have 
the small rain of chit-chat there. 

Olivia. Suppose I exclude it ? You will all walk stiffly in, 
sit stately round the room, looking as though fresh from a hy- 
dropathic establishment, encased in a sheet of ice. A row of 
mum mice ! Occasionally, a safe remark would be made, or 
a few speeches, cut and dried for the occasion, — and then the 
awful pauses ! 

19^ 



222 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 



Irene. O, then refreshments would fill them up, and even 
if we had to endure a little silence, and if we should sit and 
look so very mummy like, we could have something to think of. 

Olivia. Not even the refreshments would fill up the space. 
No jokes would be cracked with the nuts, no sentiments sugar 
the sweetmeats, and the ice-cream would hardly melt on the 
lips. 

Ireiie. You grow quite eloquent ! Keep on ! 

Olivia. Eloquent or not, give me the delightful small talk 
for my party, and I '11 let all other refreshments go, for without 
that there 's no poetry, wit, or romance. 

Irene. Poetry, wit, and romance, when small talk preside ! 
I can't understand you. 

Olivia. That 's because you 've got on such high heels to- 
night. Be careful, or you will overlook all your friends. 

Irene. Now, Olivia, you 're too bad ! I don't feel so very 
tall, but I do think I can reach high thoughts sometimes. 

Olivia. Ah ! Irene, you 're trying to reach the clouds, and 
so you tread over all the sweet flowers, delicious fruits, and 
rich grains, around you. 

Irene. What ! you don't style nonsense, gossip, and tattle, 
delicious and rich, do you ? 

Olivia. There it is, Irene ; you think people can't chat with- 
out they gossip. Now, I think people can't gossip when they 
c?iat. 

Irene. What do you mean ? 

Olivia. Why, I call chatting the sweet interchange of 
thought, by which we catch quickly each other's emotions or 
feelings. 

Irene. Well, you 're getting wiser than I, now ; I thought 
chatting was the silliest kind of gossip. 

Olivia. How can it be ? There 's something so cosy in the 
very word chat, that it seems to draw out all the warmest and 
tenderest feelings of the heart. 

Irene. Well, I believe I am a little crusty to-night, but I 
think your pleasant chit-chat will break it all away. Don't I 
begin to look rather melting ? 

Olivia. Why, yes, I think you do ; and I think the right 
kind of chat will melt a harder heart than yours. 

Irene. So do I ; and as it is a grace the " lord of creation" 
has granted peculiarly to our sex, let us make the most of it, 
for there is not much they are willing to grant us. 

Olivia. Oh yes, for we are all a chatting, chit, chat, chat- 
ting, as on through life we go ! 



AND DRAMATIC. 223 

THE HARD NAME. 



COMM. SCRIPT. 




MRS. SMITH, MRS. BROWN, 


MRS. JONES, 


MISS WILLOWBOUGH, MISS VINEGAR, 


BETTY, 


MR. WHITE. 





Mrs. Smith. Well, it is certainly very mysterious ! 

Mrs. Broiv7i. Very mysterious, indeed ! 

Miss Willowbough. Altog-ether beyond my comprehension ! 

Mrs. Jones. [On entering.] Mysterious ! do tell me all about it! 

Mrs. B. Why ! have you heard nothing of the mysterious 
stranger 

Mrs. J. Nothing. 

Mrs. S. Who has been here ever since the day before 
yesterday morning 

Mrs. J. Not a word ! how remarkable ! 

Miss W. And whose name no one can discover ? 

Mrs. J. Wonderful ! wonderful ! But what is the peculiar 
mystery about him ? 

Mrs. S. A great deal, I assure you. In the first place, he 
— he wears a black coat and drab pantaloons — and then, 
again, he — he — indeed his whole appearance has an air of 
very peculiar mystery. 

Mrs. J. Bless me ! what are we all coming to ! But is 
there no way to find out who he is ? 

Mrs. S. I expect Miss Vinegar here every moment, and if 
any one knows anything about him, she does. 

Mrs. J. What, that old maid ? Oh, I detest her ! she is 
so terrible inquisitive ! I never could bear any one who is 
eternally prying into the affairs of their neighbors. Then 
you can't find out even his name ? I would give anything to 
know. But, here comes Miss Vinegar ; perhaps she can tell 
us that, and a great deal more. 

[Enter Miss Vinegar.] 

Mj'S. S. Well, Miss Vinegar, what success — what did you 
learn at the tavern ? 

Miss Vinegar. Would you believe it ? — the landlady knows 
nothing about him ! I have only ascertained that he rises at 
eight, and drinks two cups of cofTee without cream. 

Mrs. J. Without cream ? 

Miss V. Yes, without cream. I was very particular in my 
inquiries, and the information may be relied upon. 

Mrs. J. Singular ! very singular indeed ! Now, I think 
cream is all the beauty of coffee. 



224 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 



Miss V. I should not be at all surprised if he should prove 
to be a bank robber, whom we saw advertised. 

Miss W. But he is a dark man, with black hair, and the 
stranger has a very light complexion. 

Miss V. Nothing easier than to alter the complexion, as 
you must know, Miss Willowbough ! 

Miss W. But then the robber is a large man, and the 
stranger is tall and slim. 

Miss V. [Rather sharply, and casting a significant glance to Miss Willow- 
bough's fornn.] Nothing easier than reducing the size of the waist ! 

Miss W. But there is one thing he could not alter. He is 
evidently not more than twenty-five years old, while the 
advertisement describes the robber as over forty ; and, your 
own experience, Miss Vinegar, must have convinced you of 
the impossibility of any one's appearing twenty years younger 
than he really is 

Mrs. S. [Directing attention to the window.] There he gOeS, aS I 
live ! [All go to look.] 

Mrs. J. See, see, how mysteriously he lifts his foot, to 
avoid that muddy spot ! 

Miss W. I wonder if he is married ? 

Miss V. If he is not, he will not probably fancy a piece of 
paint and whalebone ! 

MissW. Nor a woman old enough to be his grandmother ! 

Mrs. S. There, did you see Mr. White ? He bowed to 
the stranger. So he must know him. I will knock on the 
window, and beckon for him to come in ; I will inquire con- 
cerning his daughter — she is in delicate health, you know. 
Indeed, I have some preserves for her. A capital excuse, is 

it not ? fAll take seats.] 

Miss V. Oh, why did you beckon to that man ? 

Mrs. S. We have no other way of ascertaining anything 
about the stranger ; but what objection have you to Mr. 
White ? 

Miss V. He is so very impertinent. Would you believe 
it — no longer than last Monday, I saw him go home Avith a 
covered market-basket — strange, that people will use such 
things ; — sent Betty over to ascertain what he had for dinner 
— the most natural thing in the world, you know — and what 
do you think he said ? He told her he would dine on scandal, 
and was it not so very common a dish, he would invite her 
mistress to dinner. So impertinent ! and to a lady too ! I 
declare, I can't bear him. Betty found out, though. He had 
a salmon. It could n't have cost him less than three or four 
dollars, — say three dollars and fifty cents. 



AND DRAMATIC. 225 

[Enter Mr. White.] 

Mrs. B. What gentleman were you speaking to just now ? 

Mr. White. O, he, he — was a stranger. 

Mrs. B. Well, what is his name ? 

Mr. W. I really do not know — as I ought to — in fact, I 
do not exactly think it will do 

Mrs. B. Oh ! but you must tell us ; only us ; it shall go 
no further, I assure you. 

Mr. W. I should like to tell you ; but, really, there are 
some peculiar circumstances, which 

Mrs. S. But you certainly would not hesitate to inform us. 
I have not the least curiosity in the world, but I merely — 
wish to know, that 's all. 

Mr. W. He has a very hard name. 

Mrs. S. Hard name —^ what, is it stone ? 

Mr. W. Oh! no; Harder. 

Mrs. S. Harder than stone ? then it is iron, I suppose. 

Mr. W. No, Harder yet. 

Mrs. S. Harder than iron ? impossible ! — adamant ? 

Mr. W. Harder still. 

- Mrs. S. Harder than adamant ! I cannot imagine what 
it is. 

Mr. W. I do not feel at liberty to tell ; but, if you can 
guess, I shall not be responsible. So good-morning, ladies. 

[Exit White.] 

Mrs. S. What can it be, — harder than adamant ? 

Mrs. B. I have it— Heart. • 

Miss W. [With a sigh.] You do uot mean, pray, that the 
heart is harder than adamant ? 

Mrs. B. I speak in a spiritual sense. The heart is, by 
nature, totally depraved, and until 

Miss V. Wonder if it is not Pharaoh ? 

Miss W. I have got it ; I bet his name is Diamond. 

[Enter Betty.] 

3Iiss V. What 's the matter now, Betty ? — what has sent 
you over here all out of breath ? — speak — tell ! 

Betty. Nothing, only that strange man, you are so anxious 
about — at — our house 

Miss V. You don't say he honored us with a call I — did 
you not invite him in, and tell him to be sure to stop until you 
could run over for your mistress ? 

Betty. O no ! that was not what 1 wanted to say. I was 
going to say, as he was passing our house, I saw this letter 
drop, when he went to get his handkerchief, and I ran and 



226 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

got it, and have brought it right straight to you. [The letter is 

passed to Miss Vinegar.] 

jVllSS V. [Glancing at tlie superscription, wliile all rise and press witii eager 

expectation around her.] Well, we have it at last — the mystery is 
solved. I knew I should find it out. 

Mrs. S. and Mrs. B. [Together.] What is it? — read, do 
read it ! 

Miss V. [Holding the letter up, reads the superscription.] To WiLLIAM 

Harder, Esq., Dealer in Second-hand Clothing, Brattle-st., 
Boston ! 



FORTUNE-TELLING. 

J. A. FLETCHER. 
SUSAN, EVELINE, SARAH, AND MARY ANN. 

Susan. Come, girls, let us go and have our fortunes told. 

Eveline. Oh ! I should like it, of all things. Where shall 
we go ? 

Sarah. Let us go to old Kate Merrill's. They say she can 
read the future as we do the past, by hand, tea-cups, or cards. 
Come, Mary Ann. 

Mary Ann. Excuse me, girls, if I do not go with you. I 
do not think it is right to have our fortunes told. 

Susan. Not right ? Why not ? 

Mary A7in. Because, if it had been best for us to know 
the future, I think it would have been directly revealed to us. 

Susan. Oh, but you know this is only for amusement. 

Eveline. Of course, we shall not believe a word she says. 

Mary Ann. If it is only for amusement, I think we can 
find others far more rational and innocent. Bat depend upon 
it, girls, you would not wish to go, if there were not in your 
minds a little of credulous feeling. 

Susan. Well, I am sure I am not credulous. 

Mary Ann. Do not be offended, Susan ; I only meant that 
we are all of us more inclined to believe these things than 
we at first imagine. 

Sarah. I think that you are right in this respect. I am 
sure I would not go if I did not think her predictions would 
come to pass. 

Mary Ann. Certainly ; I could not suppose you would 
spend your time and money to hear an old woman tell you 
things you did not believe. 



AND DRAMATIC. 227 

Eveline. Well, I am sure I do not see any harm in having 
a little fun once in a while. 

Susan. No ; and I think it is very unkind in Mary Ann to 
spoil all our pleasures with her whims. 

Mary Ann. I hope I should be willing to give up a mere 
whim, for the pleasure of those I love so well. But this is not 
a whim. ; it is a serious conviction of duty. 

Susan. Well, I thought you always pretended to be very 
obliging. 

Mary Ann. I have no right to oblige at the expense of 
what I deem duty. Our own inclinations we should often 
sacrifice, our prejudices always, but our sense of duty never. 

Sarah. I agree with 3^ou in this respect perfectly ; but then 
I wish you would tell us what harm you think it would do 
to go. 

Mary Ann. Well, girls, I think, by trying to look into the 
.future, we are apt to grow discontented and restless, and to 
forget that we have duties to perform in the present. Then, 
if we do not believe in it, it is a waste of time and money, 
which might be better employed in relieving the suffering of 
the poor around us. But the greatest evil of all is, that we 
should believe even a part. She would, of course, tell us 
many little circumstances which would be true of any one ; 
thus we might be led to believe all she said ; the prediction 
would probably work out its own fulfilment, and perhaps render 
us miserable for life. 

Susan. Oh, fudge ! Mary Ann. This is altogether too 
bad and ungenerous in you. In the first place, the few cents 
we give, bestowed as they are on a poor old widow woman, 
are not wasted, in my opinion, but well spent ; and if I 
spend an evening, granted to me by my parents for recreation, 
in listening to old Kate, it is no more wasted than if I spend 
it with the girls in any other social way. And when you 
connect fortune-telling and our duties in the present, you 
make it too serious an afiair. Remember^ this is all for 
sport. 

Mary Ann. It may be so with you, Susan ; but there are 
those who seriously believe every word of a fortune-teller. 
The contentment and peace of many young minds have been 
utterly lost, sold for the absurd jabbering of old, ignorant, low- 
bred women, who pretend to read the future. [in a livelier ton*.] 
But just say, girls, do you believe there is any connection, 
between tea-leaves and your future lives ? 

Eveline., Sarah. Susan. Why, no ! 



228 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Mary Ann. Do you believe that our fortunes are marked 
on the face of cards ? 

Eveline. Sarah, Susan. Certainly not. 

Mary Ann. Well, do you believe, if the secret events of 
the future should be intrusted with any of our race, it would 
be with those who have neither intellectual, moral, nor religious 
education — who can be bribed by dollars and cents to say 
anything ? 

Sarah, Eveline. No, indeed ! 

Mary Ann. [Turns to Susan.] You do uot answer, Susan. Do 
you suppose Kate Merrill believes that she has a revelation 
from God ? 

Susan. No, Mary Ann. 

Mary Ann. Do you suppose she thinks you believe so ? 

Susan. Why, yes, I do. 

Mary Ann. Then, is it benevolent to bestow money to 
encourage an old woman in telling for truth what she knows 
to be false ? 

Susan. I doubt whether it is really benevolent. 

Mary Ann. And if old Kate speaks falsely, and knows she 
does so, and you know it, yet spend your time in listening to 
what she has to say, what good can come of it, to head or 
heart ? 

Susan. None at all. It is time wasted, and I am convinced 
that I have been doubly wrong, in wishing to go, and in being 
angry with you. I hope you will forgive me. 

Mary Ann. Certainly, Susan. And now, if you wish for 
amusement, I will be a witch myself, and tell your fortunes 
for you. 

Susan. Oh, do tell mine ! and be sure you tell it truly. 
What lines of fate do you see in my hand ? 

Mary Ann. [Takes her hand, and looks at it intently.] 
(To Susan.) 

Passions strong my art doth see, — 
Thou must rule them, or they mle thee. 
If the first, you peace will know ; 
If the last, woe followeth woe. 

Sarah. Now tell mine next. 

(To Sarah.) 

Too believing, too believing, 
Thou hast learned not of deceiving ; 
Closely scan what seemeth fair, 
And of flatterinof words beware. 



AND DRAMATIC. 



229 



Eveline. Now tell me a pleasant fortune. 

(To Eveline.) 

Lively and loving, I would not chide thee ; 

Do thou thy duty, and joy shall betide thee. 
Susan. Thank you, Mary Ann, for the lessons you have 
given us. We can now, in turn, tell your fortune, and that 
is, — Always be amiable and sensible as now, and you will 
always be loved. 



QUEEN CATHARINE. 

COMM, SCKIPT. 



Catharine, a Princess. 
Elizabeth, her attendant. 
Simon, a cottager. 



Rachbl, his wife. 
Judy, J daughters of 
Did ah, 5 Simon and Rachel. 

OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS OF THE KING. 

Scene I. An uneven country — at early eve. 

[Enter Catharine and Elizabeth.] 

Catharine. This sure is not a dream to mock our wretched- 
No ! Elizabeth, we are as free as the rills that leap [ness ! 
About our path. Which of our bra sen 
Bosomed keepers thought their doves, so safely mewed 
In that old turret's top, would thus take wing 
For these wild dells, these devious solitudes ? 
Long, long will be their search, yet vain as long. 
What think you, now, — can e'en their falcon glance 
Pierce to where we shall find our nestling place ? 

Elizabeth. Alas ! I fear we are not quite escaped. 
Do not, my lady, hope that royalty, 
Or one among his minions, can be at ease 
When once it be known that Catharine is free. 

Cath. Why speak you thus ? the king himself declared 
That I again might go forth. 

Eliz. Said he so ? You might go forth ? His meaning, 
Then, was not what words import. Sooner than you 
Should leave lone Cremlitz, except upon your bier, 
He would himself pace nightly on your guard. 
You might soon go forth ? In death, he surely meant, [ness 

Cath. These are strange words. Why is there such keen- 
In thy hatred to the king ? His conduct tells 
Another tale than that he seeks the life 
His royal brother entrusted to his care. 

Eliz. His conduct ! — art thou then deceived ? 
20 



230 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 



Hast thou not seen the wiles he has practised 
To draw thee to thy ruin ? 

Cath. What mean you ? My uncle has been always kind. 

Fliz. the dissembler ! He has long excluded 
From your presence all but his own purchased slaves. 
He would make the world believe your father 
Had disowned you. 

Cath. And is this true ? Why spake you not before ? 

'Eliz. I wished to serve you, and wisdom bade me 
Speak not thus in Cremlitz' hall. 

Cath. What wiles are those you mentioned ? 

Eliz. I knew but little — I could know but little. 
This much was often mentioned, that you were 
But the lamb just in a lion's paw; a lion, too, 
More fierce than those which sweep the plains 
Of Araby, because without their noble soul. 

Cath. How said they he would catch his prey ? 

Eliz. That he strove to make the nobles think 
Thee mad ; at least a poor demented thing. 
Who could not guide the state, or play the monarch. 

Cath. And who believed his tale ? 

Eliz. All who choose an hour's peace beneath smiles 
Of a false usurper to the holy cause of right. 

Cath. And did he not fear, that some remnant 
Of the father's vengeance might at last burst forth 
From his injured daughter's rage ? [geance 

Eliz. As thou mightest have guessed, he feared no ven- 
Speaking from the coffin-lid. 

Cath. O horror ! Speak not thus ! thou sure art mad 
To think he 'd murder his own brother's daughter ! 

Eliz. I know he would. 

Cath. What proof hast thou ? 

Eiz. I have myself been tampered with, 
And that by the king in person. 

Cath. Merciful Heaven ! O, whither shall I fly, 
If such indeed be his dark purpose ! 
No shelter can these beetling rocks. 
These peaceful glens, afford. Like the wild tornado, 
He will sweep these forests to the western sea. 
But he will find his victim ere to-morrow eve. 
Elizabeth, it darkens now apace ; 
Seek, on yonder eminence, if from either side 
There gleams the light of human habitation. 

Eliz. You will not long wait my return. [Exit Eiizabetii.] 

Cath. Who would credit, that beneath those polished smiles 



AND DRAMATIC. 



231 



There lurked such wolfish, hellish thoughts ? 

That when he patted my smooth cheek, 

And called me pretty coz, he owned no charms 

But in the loveliness of death ? admired this brow 

But as the banquet-place of worms ? 

And why seek I now to flee his murderous hand? 

Who is there would survive the sunset of their hopes ; 

Who grope in disappointment's darkness, 

Amid the scathed and blasted remnants 

Of cherished expectation ? 

But hush this boding strain? — thy father's Catharine 

Should not thus repine ; let his dear shade. 

If now it hovers nigh his daughter's misery, 

Witness still her lofty sufferance. 

The rays of day indeed are faded, and the shades of night 

Are on these hills ; but yet again the sun 

Will o'er them beam in brightness, and in beauty. 

My father's God is still on high, to prosper right 

And shelter the defenceless. The lines of gray 

That fret to-morrow's east may not be 

AVithout some messenger of joy and peace. 

[Enter Elizabelh.] 

Saw you aught, Elizabeth ? 

Eliz. I did, my lady. Not far down the glen 
There glimmers a feeble light. 

Cath. It is of some cottage ; let us instantly seek it. 
Heaven grant it shines on honest ones, 
Who will in part befriend us. 

Scene II. A room in a cottage. Simon making an axe-handle^ 
with shavings around him — Rachel spinning — Judy winding 
yarn, held over the hands of Did ah. 

Judy. How much of this yarn must I wind ? 

Rachel. O, wind a right smart lot of it. 

Judy. I am winding as fast as I can ; but how much ? 

Rachel. Wind about enough. 

Judy. Well, how much do you call enough ? 

Rachel. Why, you jade you ! as much as I always wind, 
when you are not here to do such things. 

Judy. [Aside.] I wonder how I should know how much 
mother winds when I 'm at the village. 

Simon. Don't, wife, bother the gal with your long-winded 
'quivocalities. 

[Enter Catharine and Elizabeth.] 

Cath. Your pardon, good people, for disturbing you at this 



232 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

hour. We are here with none to help us ; and are come to 
seek for shelter. 

Rachel. How came you here ? You do not look as if you 
were used to these rough hills. 

Cath. Do not question our distress too far ; we, indeed, are 
not what we have been. Enough to say, we are in distress 
and ask your aid ? 

Judy. [To Simon.] That gold chain and handsome frock does 
not look like distress. 

Rachel. And how do you expect that we can help you ? we 
are almost too poor to help ourselves — such smart looking 
girls as you are, too ? 

Cath. You can assist us , and we hope the more, because 
you are poor. We are fled from confinement, and seek the 
means to prevent our return. 

Eliz. We cannot stop now to tell how ; O, will you save 
us ? We will, perhaps, sometime reward you well. Let us 
be your daughters. 

Rachel. What can you do ? Can you spin, or milk the 
cows, or pen the sheep, or sew, or knit, or weave ? 

Cath. Elizabeth can, and I know that I can learn. But 
here, [holding out a pursej good woman, this purse is full of roubles; 
take them all ; they are nothing to our safety. 

Rachel. [Taking the purse— looking at it.] What Say yOU, Simon ? 

Eliz. ! do save us. If the king should find my dear 
mistress, she is lost ! 

Simon. The king ! was he your keeper ? does he seek her 
life? 

Eliz. He does. 

Simon. Wife, we must help these ladies. What would we 
have given, three years ago, if our sons had been saved from 
that cruel king? my sons! they were noble boys, and most 
cruelly murdered. 

Rachel. AVell, you may be our daughters while you wish. 
I would do anything to vex the king. 

Cath. Can you give us any dress to disguise ours ? 

Rachel. Judy, give her your large cape and apron. [Judy 

passes the articles — Catharine appears rather awkward in putting them on.] They 

will do, I think. [ToDidah.i Go, and get something for the 
other. [To Judy.] You may go too, and after the lady's dress is 
fixed, you may all together do up the out-door chores. 

[Exit Didah, Judy and Elizabeth.] 
Cath. [Having adjusted her dress, sits down.] But I mUSt have SOme 

work to do ; can't I learn some of your work ? 
Rachel. Can't you knit ? 



AND DRABIATIC. 



233 



Cath. Not much ; but I know I could learn. 

Rachel, [Gets some knitting from her bag, and sliows Caliiarine how to knit; 
talking as necessary, after a few moments, to Simon.] W^on't yOU gO and 

help the girls ? They will need you about penning the cows. 

Simon. [Getting up, brushing himself] Well, I '11 See 'bout it. 

[Exit Simon.] 

Rachel. Tell us, now, how you escaped so clear from your 
prison. 

Cath. We were kept in Cremlitz castle, and allowed to go 
hunting at times, with a slender guard. We never seemed 
to manifest any concern about our captivity, and thus, our 
guards at length became quite negligent. This morning, as 
they were in eager pursuit of the deer, we galloped around an 
eminence, beyond which was a path to the castle, shaded by 
trees. As we reached the path, we left our horses to pursue 
their way home, and our straggling keepers to be deceived by 
their hoof-prints, when they should discover we had left the 
chase. [Singing is heard, without.] Who is that singing so sweetly ? 

Rachel. Nobody but our Dide. And did you come the 
rest of the long way on foot ? 

Cath. We did, except a few miles in an honest country- 
man's cart. 

[Enter Judy, Didah, and Elizabeth.] 

Judy. We have got all our out-door work done up ; what 
shall we go about next ? 

Rachel. You ought to know as well as I. You may get 
your frock you tore yesterday, and mend it. [Exit judy.] 

Cath. [To Didah.] Was that you, my girl, who just sang so 
sweetly ? [Didah looks very bashful] Sing for me a song, for I feel 
very sad. 

Didah. I can't sing much. 

Rachel. Our Didah is so very bashful. 

Cath. Never mind, Didah ; I like to see girls somewhat 
diffident. 

Rachel. What tune was that which made the girls laugh 
so, last night ? 

Didah. I can't sing that. 

Cath. Well, sing what you like, then. 

[Didah sings " Fair Nottinggimtown."] 

Cath. That is a merry song, and very merrily sung. Is 
the other, your mother mentioned, as laughable ? 

[Enter Officers and Soldiers.] 

Cath. [Aside.] Merciful Heavens ! here are the king's officers. 

Officer. Good lady, have you about here any strange per- 
sons, one a crazy girl — but here [handing a paper] is the direc- 
tion. 20* 



234 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Rachel. [Reading, partly aloud.] Escaped this morning- — derang- 
ed — dark hair — jewelry — mum, mum, mum. — So com- 
mands the king. [Handing back, with reverence.] Why did I not 
know his majesty's officers before ? [Goes up, and slaps Catharine on the 

cheek.] Why do you sit loitering here, and gazing, as though 
you had no manners, before the king's officers ? Off, and that 
right quick, and help your sister and your father pen the 

sheep ! [Exit Catharine, Elizabeth, and Didah.] Since OUr SOnS have 

died, our daughters have to perform their service. 

Officer. But have you seen the persons described ? 

Rachel. You have seen all I have seen, except my husband 
and daughter Judy, who are about the chores. 

Officer. Have you heard of them ? 

Rachel. How should we hear of them, who have scarcely a 
neighbor with whom to speak ? 

Officer. We must find them. The king himself is out in 
search of them ; and is now about the western hill. 

Rachel. The king ! and does he care so much about two 
crazy women ? 

Officer. Sure he does ; well he may. Good woman, you 
say you have no neighbors. Then must his majesty, with 
your permission, pass here the hours until dawn. 

Rachel. That I should be so honored as to have a king 
beneath my roof ! Things shall be ready, according to our 
means. [Exit Officers and Soldiers.] Alas ! poor thing, how cau we 
protect her ? So innocent, and so lovely, she must not be 
snared ! 

[Enter Catharine and Elizabeth.] 

Cath. Whither, oh ! whither shall I seek refuge ? The 
king's officers will be eagle-eyed about this place. He that 
was just here has well-nigh discovered us already. I heard 
him muttering to his men, you had too many daughters. 

Rachel. Oh ! that I could save you ! 

Cath. Is there no hiding-place in your knowledge ? 

Rachel. Sure, there is the mountains. 

Cath. yes ; in the mountains ! Some lonely grot, some 
shady recess. 

Rachel. But hold. Even there you cannot be safe ; your 
too eager hope has forgot the fear you just mentioned. If he 
thinks we have too many daughters, what, if he returns, and 
finds two are gone ? 

Cath. True ; suspicions would be thus made realities. 

Rachel. You must then remain disguised. You may yet 
escape. 

Cath. No. [Attcinpiiiig to remove iicr disguise.] He maybe kind; 



AND DRAMATIC. 235 

but, kind or not, I have no power to choose. When he comes 
he shall not find me mad. 

Eliz. Let me entreat ! [Attempting to restore her disguise.] 

Cath. No, Elizabeth ; I will appear as my royal father's 
daughter should appear. I will have no protection but inno- 
cence and truth. 

[Enter Simon, in haste.] 

Sim. This land is free ! the tyrant has just now, in his 
haste, fallen, with his horse, off the westland crag, and a man- 
gled corse is all that remains of our sons' murderer, and this 

lady's foe. [Catharine shrieks, and, fainting, is supported by Simon and Rachel.] 

Rack. So much for joy ! 

Eliz. It was not joy. She loved him once, 
But soon far other thoughts be hers I ween ; 
For know you now, your daughter is your queen ! 



WILLIAM TELL. 

J. S. KNOWLES. 



Tell, a Swiss patriot. 
Emma, his wife. 
Albert, their son. 



Gesler, a tyrannical governor. 
Sarnem, an attendant. 
Verner, a friend of Tell. 



SOLDIERS AND CITIZENS. 

Scene 1. Cottage — mountains and lake. 

Emma. [Entering.] O, the fresh morning ! 
That never empty handed comes to those 
Who know to use its gifts. Praise be to him 
Who lends it still, and bids it constant run 
The errand of his bounty ! Praise be to him ! 

[Enter Albert.] 

Albert. My mother ! 

Em. Albert ! Bless thee ! How early were you up ? 

Alb. Before the sun. 

Em.. Ay, strive with him. He never lies abed 
When it is time to rise. Be like the sun. 

Alb. What you would have me like, I '11 be like. 
As far as wid to labor joined can make me. 

Em. Well said, my boy ! Knelt you when you got up, 
To-day ? 

Alb. I did ; and do every day. 

Em. I know you do ! And think you, when you kneel, 
To whom you kneel ? 



236 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 



Alb. To him who made me, mother. 

Em. And in whose name ? 

Alb. In the name of him, who died 
For me and all men, that all men and I 
Should live. 

Em. That 's right ! Remember that, my son : 
Forget all things hut that — remember that ! 
'T is more than friends or fortune ; clothing, food ; 
All things of earth ; yea, life itself. It is 
To live, when these art gone, where they are nought — 
With God ! My son, remember that ! 

Alb. I will! 

Em. I 'm glad you husband what you 're taught. 
That is the lesson of content, my son ; 
He who finds which, has all — who misses, nothing. 

Alb. [Tell enters, Albert runs to embrace him.] 

Ah ! my father. 

Em. [Advancing towards her husband. ] 

William ! Welcome, William ! welcome ! 

I did not look for you till noon, and thought 

How long 'twould be ere noon would come. You're come — 

Now this is happiness ! Joy's double joy, 

That comes before the time. 

Tell. [To Albert.] Dear child, I well may love thee. 
[To Emma.] And this cottage ! How dear is it to me, 
Made happy by thy presence — and where I 
Was born ! How many acres would I give 
That little vineyard for, which I have watched 
And tended since I was a child ? Those crags 
And peaks — what spired city would I take 
To live in exchange for them ? Yet what 
Are these to me ? What is this boy to me ? 
What art thou, Emma, to me — when a breath 
Of Gesler's can take all ? 

Em. O, William ! think 
How little is that all to him — too little 
For Gesler, sure, to take ! Bethink thee, William, 
We have no treasure. 

Tell. Have we not ? Have we 
No treasure ? How ! No treasure ? What ! 
Have we not liberty ? — that precious ore. 
That pearl, that gem, the tyrant covets most, 
Yea, makes a pawn of his soul — to strip 
The wearer of it! Emma, we have that, 
And that 's enough for Gesler ! 



AND DRAMATIC. 237 

Em. Then, indeed, 
My William, we have much to fear. 

Tell. We have; 
And best it is we know how much. Then, Emma, 
Make up thy mind, wife ! make it up ! remember 
What wives and mothers, on these very hills, 
Once breathed the air you breathe ; — 
But go now and tell our people to guard 
Well the boy in whom is bound up our hope. 
While his father and thy husband strive, as best 
He can, to foil that tyrant of tyrants, 
Gesler, that he throw not around these free limbs 

His chains. [Both go out, — one to the right, the other to the left.] 

Scene II. Before a castle. 

[Enter Gesler, Albert, Verner, Sarnem, Officers, Soldiers, with TeU chained, and people.] 

Sar. Down, slave ! 
Behold the governor. Down ! down ! and beg 
For mercy ! 

Ges. Does he hear ? — Thy name ? 

Tell. My name? 
It matters not to keep it from thee now : 
My name is Tell. 

Ges. Tell!— William Tell? 

Tell. The same. 

Ges. What ! he so famed, 'bove all his countrymen, 
For guiding o'er the stormy lake the boat ? 
And such a master of his bow, 't is said 
His arrows never miss ! — [Aside.] Indeed ! — I '11 take 
Exquisite vengeance ! —Mark ! [To TeU.] I '11 spare thy life, 
Thy boy's too. Both of you are free, — on one 
Condition. 

Tell. Name it. 

Ges. I would see you make 
A trial of your skill with that same bow 
You shoot so well with. 

Tell. Name the trial you 
Would have me make. [TeU looks on Albert.] 

Ges. You look on your boy. 
As though instinctively you guessed it. 

Tell. Look 
Upon my boy ! — What mean you ? Look upon 
My boy, as though I guessed it ! Guessed the trial 
You 'd have me make ! Guessed it 
Instinctively ! You do not mean — no — no — 



238 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

You would not have me make a trial of 
My skill upon my child ? Impossible ! 
I do not guess your meaning. 

Ges. I would see 
Thee hit an apple at the distance of 
A hundred paces. 

Tell. Is my boy to hold it ? 

Ges. It is to rest upon his head. 

Tell. Great Heaven ! 

Ges. Thou dost hear the choice I give, — 
Such trial of the skill thou 'rt master of, 
Or death to both of you, not otherwise 
To be escaped. 

Tell. Ferocious monster ! Make 
A father murder his own child ! 

Ges. Dost thou consent ? 

Alb. He does. 

[Gesler makes signs to his officers, who proceed to take off Tell's chains, — Tell, the 
meanwhile, unconscious of what they are doing.] 

Tell. With his own hand ! 
Murder his child with his own hand ! 
The hand I 've led him, when an infant, by ! 

[His chains fall off.] What 's that yOU 
Have done to me ? [To the guard.] 

Villains ! put on my chains again. My hands 
Are free from blood, and have no gust for it, 
That they should drink my child's ! — I '11 not 
Murder my boy for Gesler. 

Alb. Father — father! 
You will not hit me, father ! 

Ges. Dost thou consent ? 

Tell. Give me my bow and quiver ! 

Ges. For what ? 

Tell. To shoot my boy ! 

Alb. No, father ! no, — 
To' save me ! — you '11 be sure to hit the apple. 
Will you not save me, father ? 

Tell. Lead me forth, — 
I '11 make the trial. 

Alb. Father! — 

Tell. Speak not to me : 
Let me not hear thy voice, — thou must be dumb ; 
And so should all things be : — earth should be dumb, 
And heaven, — unless its thunders muttered at 
The deed, and sent a bolt to stop it ! Give me 
My bow and quiver ! 



AND DKAMATIC. 



239 



Ges. That is your ground. Now shall they measure thence 
A hundred paces. Take the distance. 

Tell. Is 
The line a true one ? 

Ges. True or not, what is 't 
To thee ? 

Tell. What is 't to me ? A little thing, 
A very little thing : — a yard or two 
Is nothing here or there — were it a wolf 

I shot at ! [Sarnem begins to measure.] 

Villain, stop ! 

You measure to the sun. 

Ges. And what of that ? 
What matter, whether to or from the sun ? 

Tell. I 'd have it at my back. The sun should shine 
Upon the mark, and not on him that shoots. 
I cannot see to shoot against the sun ! 
I will not shoot against the sun ! [mercy. 

Ges. Give him his way ! — Thou hast cause to bless my 

[Sarnem pacing goes out.] 

Tell. I shall remember it. — I 'd like to see 
The apple I 'm about to shoot at. 
Ges. Show me 

The basket. There ! [Gives a very small apple.] 

Tell. You 've picked the smallest one. 

Ges. I know I have. Take it. 
Thy skill will be the greater if thoa hit'st it. 

Tell. True — true, — I did n't think of that : — I wonder 
I did not think of that. Give me some chance 
To save my boy ! [Throws away the apple.] I will not murder him, 
If I can help it, — for the honor of 
The form thou wear'st, if all the heart is gone ! 

Ges. Well ! choose thyself. [Hands a basket. Tell takes an apple.] 

Tell. Have I a friend among 
The lookers on ? 

Verner. Here, Tell ! 

Tell. I thank thee, Verner ! — Take the boy 
And place this apple upon his head. 
Then, Verner, charge him to keep steady, — tell him 
I '11 hit the apple. Verner, do all this 
More briefly than I tell it thee. 

Ver. Come, Albert ! [Leading out the boy.] 
Tell. My boy ! [Holding out his arms to him.] 
Alb. My father ! [Running into Tell's arms.] 

Tell. If thou canst bear it, should not I ? — Go now, 



240 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR. 

My son — and keep in mind that I can shoot. 

Go, boy — be thou but steady, I will hit 

The apple. Go : — God bless thee ! — go. My bow ! 

[Sarnem gives the bow, and Verner retires with Albert.] 

Ges. Give him a single arrow. [To an attendant.] 

Tell. Is 't so you pick an arrow, friend ? 
The point, you see, is bent, — the feather jagged ; 
That 's all the use 'tis fit for ! [Breaks it.] 

Ges. Let him have another. [Teii examines it.] 

Tell. Why, 't is better than the first. 
But yet not good enough for such an aim 
As I 'm to take. 'T is heavy in the shaft : 
I '11 not shoot with it ! [Throws it away.] Let me See my quiver! 
Bring it ! 'T is not one arrow in a dozen 
I 'd take to shoot with at a dove, much less 
A dove like that ! 

Ges. It matters not. 
Show him the quiver. 

[Tell kneels, and while picking out an arrow, conceals one under his garment.] 

Tell. See if the boy is ready. 

Ver. He is. 

Tell. I 'm ready too ! — Keep silence, for [to the people] 
Heaven's sake ! and do not stir. And let me have 
Your prayers — your prayers ! — and be my witness, 
That if his life's in peril from my hand, 
'T is only for the chance of saving it. 
Now, friends, for mercy's sake, keep motionless 
And silent ! 

[Tell shoots; in a moment afier, Verner, with the apple on the arrow's point, comes in, 
leading Albert.] 

Ver. Thy boy is safe ! no hair of him is touched ! 

Alb. Father, I 'm safe ! — your Albert 's safe ! Dear father, 
Speak to me ! speak to me ! 

Ver. He cannot, boy ! 
Open his vest, 
And give him air ! 

[Albert open.g his father's vest, and an arrow drops : Tell starts, fixes his eyes on All)ert, 
and exclaims,] 

Tell My boy ! my boy ! 

Ges. For what 
Hid you that arrow in your breast ? Speak, slave ! 

Tell. To kill thee, tyrant, had I slain my boy ! 
Liberty 

Would, at thy downfall, shout from every peak ! 
My country then were free I 



AND DRAMATIC. 241 

COWARDICE AND BOASTING. 

W. SHAKSPEARE. 
[Enter Falstaflf.] 

P. Henry. Welcome, Jack ! Where hast thou been ? 
Falstaff. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance 
too ! — marry and amen ! Give me a cup of sack, boy ! Ere 
I lead this life long, I '11 sew nether socks, and mend them, 
and foot them too. A plague of all cowards ! Give me a 
cup of sack, rogue ! Is there no virtue extant ? [He drinksj 

P. Hen. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of but- 
ter ? — pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the sweet tale of 
the sun ? — if thou didst, then behold that compound. 

Fdl. You rogue ! here 's lime in this sack, too ! There is 
nothing but roguery to be found in villanous man. Yet a 
coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime it — a villanous 
coward ! Go thy ways, old Jack ! die when thou wilt ; if 
manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the 
earth, then am I a shotten herring ! There live not three 
good men unhanged in England ; and one of them is fat and 
grows old. God help the while ! — a bad world, I say ! I 
would I were a weaver ; I could sing alL manner of songs. 
A plague of all cowards, I say still ! 

P. Hen. How now, wool-sack ? — what mutter you ? 

Fal. A king's son ! If I do not beat thee out of thy king- 
dom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects before 
thee like a flock of wild geese, I '11 never wear hair on my 
face more ! You Prince of Wales ! 

P. Hen. Why ! — ■_ what 's the matter ? 

Fal. Are you not a coward ? — answer me to that ! 

P. Hen. If ye call me coward, P 11 stab thee ! 

Fal. I call thee coward ! I '11 see thee hanged ere I call 
thee coward ; but I would give a thousand pound I could run 
as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoul- 
ders ; you care not who sees your back. Call you that back- 
ing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! — give 
me them that will face me ! 

P. Hen. What 's the matter ? 

Fal. What 's the matter ? — here be four of us have ta'en 
a thousand pound this morning. 

P. Hen. Where is it. Jack ? — where is it ? 

Fal. Where is it ? — taken from us, it is ; a hundred upon 
four of us. 

P. Hen. What ! a hundred, man ? 

Fal. I am a rogue if I were not at half sword with a dozen 
21 



242 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

of them two hours together ! I have 'scaped by miracle. I 
am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the 
hose, my buckler cut through and through, my sword hacked 
like a hand-saw, ecce signum I I never dealt better since I 
was a man. All would not do. A plague of all cowards ! 

P. Hen. Speak, sir Jack, how was it ? 

Fal. We four set upon some dozen — and bound them 
every man of them ; or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew ; and, 
as we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us, 
and unbound the rest, and then came in the others. 

P. Hen. What ! fought you with them all ? 

Fal. All ? I know not what you call all ; but if I fought 
not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish ! if there were 
not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no 
two-legged creature I 

P. Hen. I pray Heaven, you have not murdered some of 
them. 

Fal. Nay, that 's past praying for ! I have peppered two of 
them ; two, I 'm sure, I have paid ; two rogues in buckram 
suits ! I tell thee what, Hal — if I tell thee a lie, call me a 
horse ! Thou knowest my old ward ; here I lay, and thus I 
bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me 

P. Jien. What ! four ? — thou saidst but two even now. 

Fal. Four, Hal ; I told thee four. These four came all- 
afront, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, 
but took all their seven points in my target, thus. 

P. Hen. Seven ! — why, there were but four, even now ! 

Fal. In buckram ? 

P. Hen. Ay, four in buckram suits. 

Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else ! Dost 
thou hear me, Hal ? 

P. Hen. Ay, and mark thee, too. Jack. 

Fal. Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in 
buckram that I told thee of 

P. Hen. So, two more already ! 

Fal. Their points being broken, they began to give me 
ground. But I followed me close, came in foot and hand ; 
and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid. 

P. Hen. O monstrous ! — eleven buckram men grown out 
of two ! 

Fal. But, as it happened, three misbegotten knaves, in 
Kendal green, came at my back, and let drive at me ; for it 
was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand ! 

P. Hen. These lies are like the father that begets them ; 
gross as a mountain, open, palpable ! Why, thou clay-brained, 
knotty-pated fool I thou tallow-keech ! 



AND DRAMATIC. 243 

Fal. What ! art thou mad ? — art thou mad ? — is not the 
truth the truth ? 

P. Hen. Why, how couldst thou know these men in Ken- 
dal green, when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand ? 
Come, tell us your reason ! What sayest thou to this ? 

Fal. What ! upon compulsion ? No ; were I at the strap- 
pado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on 
compulsion ! Give you a reason on compulsion ! — if reasons 
were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason 
upon compulsion ! I 

P. Hen. I 'U be no longer guilty of this sin. Thou san- 
guine coward! thou horse-back-breaker! thou huge hill of 
flesh ! 

Fal. Away, you starveling ! you elf-skin ! you dried neats' 
tongue ! you stock-fish ! 0, for breath to utter what is like 
thee ! — you tailor's yard ! you bow-case ! you vile standing 
tuck ! 

P. Hen. Well, breathe a while, and then to it again ; and 
when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me 
speak but this. Poins and I saw you four set on four ; you 
bound them, and were masters of their wealth. Mark, now, 
how a plain tale shall put you down. Then did we two set 
on you four ; and, with a word, outfaced you from your prize, 
and have it ; yea, and can show it you here in the house ; 
and, Falstaff, you carried your mountain sides away as nim- 
bly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still 
ran and roared, as ever I heard a calf. What a slave art thou, 
to hack thy sword, as thou hast done, and then say it was in 
fight ! What trick, what device, what starting hole, canst 
thou now find out, to hide thee from this open and apparent 
shame ? 

Fal. Ha, ha, ha ! I knew ye as well as he that made ye. 
Why, hear me, my master. Was it for me to kill the heir 
apparent ? — should I turn upon the true prince ? Why, thou 
know'st I am as valiant as Hercules ; but beware instinct ! the 
lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great mat- 
ter ; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the better on 
myself, and thee, during my life ; I for a valiant lion, and 
thou for a true prince. But, lads, I am glad you have the 
money. Hostess, clap to the doors ! watch to-night, pray to- 
morrow ! Gallants ! lads ! boys ! hearts of gold ! all the titles 
of good fellowship come to you ! What ! shall we be merry ? 
— shall we have a play extempore ? 

P. Hen. Content ; and the argument shall be thy running 
away. 

Fal. Ah ! no more of that, Hal, an thou lov'st me ! 



244 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 



THE INDIAN'S WRONGS. 

N. T. MONROE. 

Ontaria, an Indian chief. | Uono, a young Indian woman. 

Scene : — The shore of a lake, surrounded by deep woods. Ontaria 
standing beneath an aged oak, his tomahawk, bow and arrows, lying 
neglected at his feet. 

Ontaria. My father's land hath felt the white man's tread ; 
His step hath echoed on our hunting-grounds, 
And scared the wild deer from his forest home. 
The red man seeks for food, but finds it not ; 
The white man's corn grows on his fathers' graves, 
His cattle feed where once our forests stood ; 
And yet, the Indian must not touch his corn. 
Nor kill one of his thousand sheep, which feed 
Upon our hills, — for death would be his doom ! ^ 
And hath the red man's mighty spirit sank. 
That thus the pale-face treads him under foot ? 
Is the fell tomahawk entombed for aye ? 
Are our bright council-fires forever dead ? 
The white man's poison mixes with the blood, 
And maddens in our warriors' veins. They drink 
The deadly draught the pale-face gives, and fall, 
As the leaves from our old forest oaks 
Before the autumn blast ! O may the curse. 
The malediction of a blighted heart, 
Kest on his dwelling ! May it ever be 
A shadow round his path, black as the cloud 
Which bears the dreaded thunder ! Let it feed 
Upon his heart, till it shall gain new strength 
To revel in the bosoms of his sons ! 
And may he die unhonored, and his bones 
Lie whitening on the plains which once were ours ! 
Hark ! a step, but it is not the white man's, — 
Too light the tread. Uono, is it thou ? 

[Enter Uono.] 

Uono. Why stands Ontaria thus in solitude ? 
Why doth the Eagle of the Mohawks leave 
His home so long ? Uono vainly watched 
To hear his steps. 

Ont. Ontaria sought for food. 
But found it not. The hunter now may roam 
The forest paths, and not a single deer 
Will cross his way ; unblest he doth return, 



AND DRAMATIC. 245 

Weary and tired, unto his home, and hears 

His children's cry for food. O let him curse 

The white man for all this, and be the thought 

Like hissing adder in his dreary way ! 

And when he sees his stately mansions rise, 

And plenty round his home, then let him turn 

Unto his own low cabin ; let him gaze 

Upon his children's meagre forms, and then. 

Then, let him brood on vengeance, deep and stern, — 

Vengeance as deadly as his burning hate ! 

TJo. The Eagle of the Mohawks now is wroth ; 
But let him turn unto his home ; his boy 
Is sleeping now, but he will wake to hear 
His father's voice, and his glad laugh will fall 
Upon his ear, and call him back to joy. 

Ont. The Indian hath no other joy 
Than his dark thought of dread and stern revenge ! 

TJo. Our tribe are gathered round to hear the words 
Of our white father — him who speaks to us 
From the great book his God hath given him. 
Will not Ontaria listen with his tribe ? 

Ont. He will not listen ! Let the white man pour 
His wily words into our warriors' ears, — 
And let the foolish listen, if they will, — 
The Eagle of the Mohawks will not go 
To hear the words like poison to his heart ! 

TJo. But our white father tells us of a God 
Of goodness and of mercy ; one who hears 
The lowliest prayers we offer ; one who loves 
The Indian as the white man. In his book 
He tells us we should love our enemies, 
And bless and pray for those who do us wrong. 

Ont. The white man saith it — ha ! and does his God 
Command him thus ? What if he disobeys ? 
What if he take the land he never owned. 
And drive the helpless and oppressed from home, 
Making him curse the day he saw the light ? — 
Say, doth he go unpunished for all this ? 
Is there no fiery bolt in heaven, to fall 
On the offender's head ? or does he sin, 
And yet his God not know it ? The Indian 
Dare not disobey ! 

TJo. The white man's God is just. He says the bad 
Shall never go unpunished, and the way 
Is hard and fearful where the sinner walks. 
21# 



246 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Ont. And yet the white man hath oppressed our tribe, 
Hath spoiled our hunting-grounds, and our dark woods 
Have fallen to the earth ! Our stately oaks 
Have built his ships to waft his merchandise 
Across the mighty deep. Nor is this all. 
He brought a weapon deadlier than the bow, 
Worse than the gun, and sharper than the knife ; 
'T is this has broke our warriors' strength — 't is this 
Has sunk the haughty Indian to the brute ! 
Is not this sin a dark and deadly one ? 

TJo. Ontaria, yes; the white man has thus sinned ; 
But can you not forgive ? can you not call 
The white man brother ? for his God is ours. 
We have one Father ! 

Ont. Sweet Uono, hear ! 
Dost thou not see yon field of waving corn ? 
My father's bones lie there : the stately oak 
Once stood above his grave, but it has fallen ; 
The axe laid low our forest's pride ; the plough 
Left its deep traces on the very spot 
Where I had laid my father's bones to rest ! 
Who had an arm so mighty in the battle 
As the great war-chief of the Mohawk tribe ? 
Who carried terror to the white man's heart 
Like Osceola ? Yet he fell ! he fell. 
As falls the tiger in the treacherous net ! 
Dost think the Indian hath forgotten this ? 
Thou knowest well the Indian ne'er forgets ; 
Nor will Ontaria forgive the pale face ! 
He will not call the hateful white man brother ! 

Uo. My warrior knoweth well the white man's law ; 
He knows that death will be the doom of him 
Who killeth even one of all their race. 

Ont. And dost thou think, Uono, gentle one ! 
The Eagle of the mighty Mohawk stoops 
Unto the white man's laws ? Did the dark chief 
E'er seek revenge and find it not ? 

Vo. The book 
Of wisdom, which our father brought, forbids 
Such things ; we should forgive, e'en as we hope 
To be forgiven. 

Ont. If the white man's God 
Teaches his children thus, they do not well 
Obey his laws ; and why, then, should the Indian ? 
To him he gave no book to teach these things. 



AND DRAMATIC. . 247 

Uono, 't is the wily white man's plan, 

That he may thus bow down the Indian's soul, 

And bind the chain of slavery firmer still. 

TJo. Not so ; now let Ontaria come and hear 
The words of our white father for himself. 

Ont. No ! let the young Fawn of the Mohawk 
Listen but once unto her warrior's words. 
Ere many suns shall rise, the Mohawk chief 
Will turn his footsteps towards the western sky. 
He goes to where the deer will start to hear 
His step, and where the forest oaks again 
Will wave above his head. When he is gone. 
The young Fawn of the pale-face, she may bow 
Unto his God ; forget, aye, if she will. 
Her warrior-chief, and dwell within the home 
Of her white brother. 

TJo. No ! she gave her heart 
Unto the mighty war-chief ; she will go 
Where'er he goes ; his wigwam is her home. 
And through the dark and lonely forests paths 
She follows him. 

Ont. Uono's feet will tire 
Before she sees the spot her chieftain seeks. 
She will be welcome in the white man's home ; 
She owns his God ; and why, then, should she wish 
To follow the lone Indian's wandering steps ? 

TJo. She loves him, — therefore will Uono go ! 
True, she calls the white man's God her Father ; 
But if Ontaria will not hear his words, 
Nor dwell among the white men, then no more 
Uono's step will tinkle in their bowers ; 
For where the Eagle of the Mohawks goes, 
There will the young Fawn of the forest follow. 

Ont. Uono, thou may'st go, if thou canst tread 
The path which leadeth toward the setting sun. 

TJo. Ontaria, wilt thou forgive the white man 
Ere thou goest ? Say thou wilt not take revenge 
On him who wronged 

Ont. Speak not to me of him ; 
For thou wilt rouse the war-whoop in my heart ! 
Let not the white man's name be on thy lips. 
And speak not now of aught his God has done ! 
I cannot hear of these, while all things round 
Speak of the Indian's wrongs ! For thee, I '11 leave 
The pale-face in his home secure, although 



'248 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

My father's spirit seems to cry, " Revenge 

Upon the murderer of my child ! " The Fawn 

Hath calmed the warrior's mighty wrath ; and though 

He never can forget, yet will he leave 

The whites unharmed, and go beyond their sight. 

And when our home is in the ancient woods. 

Then may'st thou speak of the great God who gave 

The book of life ; and then perhaps I '11 hear. 

Does the young Fawn still wish to go 

With her Ontaria to the wilderness ? 

Uo. An Indian's love is strong, and changes not ; 
Uono travels with her warrior-chief, 
Who yet will know that good and mighty God, 
Who loves the Indian, as the pale-face ! 



THE SISTERS. 

F. HEMANS. 

First Speaker. 

I go, sweet sister ! yet my love would linger with thee fain, 
And unto every parting gift some deep remembrance chain ; 
Take, then, the braid of eastern pearl, that once I loved to 

wear. 
And with it bind, for festal scenes, the dark waves of thy 

hair ; 
Its pale, pure brightness will beseem those raven tresses well. 
And I shall need such pomp no more in the lone convent cell. 

Second Speaker. 

Oh ! sister, sister ! wherefore thus ? — why part from kin- 
dred love ? 

Through festal scenes, when thou art gone, my steps no more 
shall move. 

How could I bear a lonely heart amidst a reckless throng ? 

I should but miss earth's dearest voice in every tone of song ! 

Keep, keep the braid of eastern pearl ! or let me proudly twine 

Its wreath once more around that brow, that queenly brow of 
thine ! 

First Speaker. 
Oh ! wouldst thou seek a wounded bird from shelter to 

detain ? 
Or wouldst thou call a spirit freed to weary life again ? 



AND DRAMATIC. 249 

Sweet sister ! take the golden cross that I have worn so long, 
And bathed with many a burning tear, for secret woe and 

wrong ! 
It could not still my beating heart — but may it be a sign 
Of peace and hope, my gentle one I w^hen meekly pressed to 

thine ! 

Second Speaker. 
Take back, take back, the cross of gold, our mother's gift to 

thee : 
It would but of this parting hour a bitter token be ! 
With funeral splendor to mine eyes it would but sadly shine, 
And tell of early treasure lost, of joy no longer mine ! 
Oh, sister ! if thy heart be thus with voiceless grief oppressed. 
Where couldst thou pour it forth so well as on my faithful 

breast ? 

First Speaker. 
Urge me no more ! a blight hath fallen upon my altered years ; 
I should but darken thy young life with sleepless pangs and 

fears ! 
But take, at least, the lute I loved, and guard it for my sake, 
And sometimes from the silvery strings one tone of memory 

wake ! 
Sing to those chords, in starlight hours, our own sweet vesper- 
hymn. 
And think that I, too, chant it then, far in my cloister dim ! 

Second Speaker. 
Yes ! I will take the silvery lute, and I will sing to thee 
A song we heard in childhood's days, e'en from our father's 

knee ! 
Oh ! listen, listen ! are those notes amidst forgotten things ? 
Do they not linger, as in love, on the familiar strings ? 
Seems not our sainted mother's voice to murmur in the strain ? 
Kind sister ! gentlest Leonore ! say, shall it plead in vain ? 

Song. 
Leave us not, leave us not ! 

Say not, adieu ! 
Have we not been to thee 

Tender and true ? 

Take not thy sunny smile 

Far from our hearth ! 
With that sweet light will fade 

Summer and mirth. 



250- DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Leave us not, leave us not ! 

Can thy heart roam ? 
Wilt thou not pine to hear 

Voices from home ? 

Too sad our love would be, 

If thou wert gone ! 
Turn to us ! leave us not ! 

Thou art our own ! 

First Speaker. 
Oh, sister ! thou hast won me back ! too many fond thoughts 

lie 
In every soft spring breathing tone of that old melody : 
I cannot, cannot leave thee now ! e'en though my grief should 

fall 
As a shadow o'er the pageantries that crowd our ancient hall : 
But take me ! clasp me to thine arms ! — I will not mourn my 

lot, 
Whilst love like thine remains on earth — I leave, I leave 

thee not ! 



ELLEN AND MARY. 

GOSP. TEACHER. 

Mary. 

! Ellen, this is a lovely world. 
With everything so nice ; 

God made it, and pronounced it good, — 
'T was then a Paradise. 

JEllen. 
Yes, Mary, I think 't is very fine ; 

Such hills and mountains high, 
With valleys sweet to look upon. 

And rivers gliding by. 

Mary. 

1 love to read about the birds 

Within my little book ; 
The lambs that skip, the fish that play, 
Within the pearly brook. 



AND DRAMATIC. 251 

Ellen. 
I 'd rather see those happy birds, 

And hear their merry song, 
And catch the lambs, and scare the fish, 

Than read such stories long. 

Mary, 
I love to think about the flowers 

That bloom in fields and wood ; 
God made them to adorn the earth, — 

How beautiful and good ! 

Ellen. 
I 'd rather go, a thousand times, 

And pick those wild-wood flowers. 
Out in the fields, where gay they smile, 

To bless our childhood hours. 

Mary. 
Well, — in a world so beautiful, 

How happy should we be ! 
Like playful lambs, and merry birds, 

From every sorrow free. 

Both together — hand in hand. 
O ! thus we '11 be as innocent. 

And guileless in our ways ; 
Sweet dreams shall soothe our sleep at night, 

And joy shall crown our days. 



THE COLONISTS. 



MR. BARLOW, ARTHUR, BEVERLY, CHARLES, EDWARD, FRANCIS, 
GEORGE, HENRY, LEWIS, OLIVER, PHILIP, ROBERT. 

Mr. Barlow. Come, my boys, I have a new play for you. I 
will be the founder of a colony ; and you shall be people of 
different trades and professions, coming to offer yourselves to 
go with me. — What are you, Arthur ? 

Arthur. I am a farmer, sir. 

Mr. B. Very well. Farming is the chief thing we have 
to depend upon. The farmer puts the seed into the earth, 



252 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 



and takes care of it, when it is grown to the ripe corn. With- 
out the farmer we should have no bread. But you must 
work very hard ; there will be trees to cut down, and roots to 
drag out, and a great deal of labor. 

Arthur. I shall be ready to do my part. 

Mr. B. Well, then, I shall take you willingly, and as many 
more sach good fellows as you can find. We shall have land 
enough ; and you may fall to work as soon as you please. 
Now for the next. 

Bevei'ly. I am a miller, sir. 

Mr. B. A very useful trade ! Our corn must be ground, or 
it will do us but little good. What must we do for a mill, 
my friend ? 

Bev. I suppose we must make one. 

Mr. B. Then we must take a mill-wright with us, and 
carry mill-stones. Who is next ? 

Charles. I am a carpenter, sir. 

Mr. B. The most necessary man that could offer. We 
shall find you work enough, never fear. There will be houses 
to build, fences to make, and chairs and tables besides. But 
all our timber is growing ; we shall have hard work to fell it, 
to saw boards and planks, to hew timber, and to frame and 
raise buildings. 

Ch. I will do my best, sir. 

Mr. B. Then I engage you ; but you had better bring two 
or three able hands along with you. 

Edward. I am a blacksmith. 

Mr. B. An excellent companion for the carpenter. We 
cannot do without either of you. You must bring your great 
bellows, anvil, and vice ; and we will set up a forge for you, 
as soon as we arrive. Who is next ? 

Francis. I am a shoemaker. 

Mr. B. Shoes we cannot do well without ; but I fear we 
shall get no leather. 

Fr. But I can dress skins, sir. 

Mr. B. Can you ? Then you are a clever fellow. I will 
have you, though I give you double wages. 

George. I am a barber and hair-dresser. 

Mr. B. What can we do with you ? If you will shave our 
men's rough beards once a week, and crop their hair once a 
quarter, and be content to help the carpenter the rest of the 
time, we will take you. But you will have no ladies to curl, 
or gentlemen to powder, I assure you. 

Lewis. I am a doctor. 

Mr. B. Then, sir, you are very welcome ; we shall some 



AND DRAMATIC. 253 

of US be sick ; and we are likely to get cuts, and bruises, and 
broken bones. You will be very useful. We shall take you 
with pleasure. 

Henry. I am a lawyer, sir. 

Mr. B. Sir, your most obedient servant. When we are 
rich enough to go to law, we will let you know. 

Oliver. I am a schoolmaster. 

Mr. B. That is a very respectable and useful profession. 
As soon as our children are old enough, we shall be glad of 
your services. Though we are hard-working men, we do not 
mean to be ignorant ; every one among us ought to be taught 
reading and \vriting. Until we have employment for you in 
teaching, if you will keep our accounts, and at present read 
sermons to us on Sundays, we shall be glad to have you 
among us. Will you go ? 

Oli. With all my heart, sir. 

Mr. B. Who comes here ? 

Philip. I am a soldier, sir ; will you have me ? 

Mr. B. We are peaceable people, and hope we shall not be 
obliged to fight. We are aE soldiers, and must learn to defend 
ourselves ; we shall have no occasion for you, unless you can 
be a mechanic or a farmer, as well as a soldier. 

Robert. I am a gentleman, sir. 

Mr. B. A gentleman ! And what good can you do us ? 

Roh. I expect to shoot game enough for my own eating ; 
you can give me a little bread and a few vegetables ; and the 
barber shall be my servant. 

Mr. B. Pray, sir, why should we do all this for you ? 

Roh. Why, sir, that you may have the credit of saying that 
you have one gentleman, at least, in your colony. 

Mr. B. Ha ! ha ! ha ! A fine gentleman, truly ! Sir, 
when we desire the honor of your company, we will send 
for you. 



UPON SCHOOL STUDIES. 

FERNALD. 

Catharine. I have been thinking, Eliza, on the frivolous 
pursuits of mortals in this world. 

Eliza. Quite serious-minded, then. 

Catharine. Yes ; for only think of the folly of most of our 
school-mates, who seem to have no more relish for genteel 
£|,ccomplishments than cows or horses. 
22 



254 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Eliza. Perhaps they have a different opinion of genteel 
accomplishments from what you have. 

Catharine. Indeed ! a different opinion they must have. 
For there is Charlotte Hapgood, spending all her time in 
Moral Philosophy and History, and Jane Sonett eternally por- 
ing over Composition and Poetry. And I believe to my soul, 
Martha Peabody thinks more of Astronomy and Chemistry 
than she does of all the rest of her studies. 

Eliza. But you certainly would not condemn these as not 
being genteel accomplishments I 

Catharine. No ; but then it is so horribly dry, and makes 
one appear so awkward, to be all the time thinking, and strain- 
ing after an idea, upon such deep subjects. 

Eliza. But you certainly cannot expect to know those 
things without thinking ; and as to their being deep, — if they 
can be mastered, I suppose that 's enough. 

Catharine. Oh dear ! well, you know what I mean. They 
can't know but little about 'em, any way. And besides, I asked 
Jane Lovett, the other day, if she could understand Young's 
Night Thoughts, and Milton's Paradise Lost; and she said 
she liked one for its sublimity, and the other for its moral. 
Now, just as though she knew anything about sublimity ! 

Eliza. Why, Catharine ! Don't you s'pose she ever read 
anything about the sublime and the beautiful ? 

Catharine. Why, yes ; but then what 's that to do with 
gentility? I like to see folks like other folks ; — not all the 
time so plaguey knowing ! I would rather know nothing, 
than be so plaguey proud about it. And then to be telling, 
all the time, what Jupiter is, and what Mars is, and even the 
fixed stars, as they call them ; and about inclined planes, and 
gases, and experiments; — what is the use of talking about 
such things ? 

Eliza, Why, I suppose that 's the very object they study 
them for — to be able to talk about them. 

Catharine. But who can they find to talk about such things ? 
I 'm sure J can't, and I don't care anything about them. 

Eliza. There ! now you 've brought yourself out ! It 's 
envy, after all. / don't feel capable to converse on such mat- 
ters, neither ; but I don't envy those who can. I should like 
to know Chemistry and Astronomy, and know how to appre- 
ciate Milton, and be acquainted with all the sciences ; but I 
am not, and I don't expect to be. But I 've often wished T 
knew more about TheoJogy. 

Catharine. Oh ! my ! ! You do beat all ! That is the 
dryest of all things I What ! do you mean Theology as they 
teach it in collesres ? 



AND DRAMATIC. 255 

Eliza. No, not exactly. 

Catharine. Not exactly ! — but you don't pretend that any- 
body can ever know anything about religion, any more than 
to do good, and be honest, and treat everybody as you 'd be 
done by ? 

Eliza. Why, Catharine Smith ! How you do talk ! Then 
you envy everybody else because they know the sciences that 
yoa don't, and think there 's no religion but being honest and 
good ! Strange mixture, this, of envy and self-righteousness ! 

Catharine. But what do you mean? What do you call 
me envious for ? I guess I know as much about Astronomy 
as Martha Peabody does ; and what I know, I know it better, 
too ! What does she know about a thousand stars ? No, I 'm 
not envious; but it is so plaguey silly to pretend such 
awful learning, when they don't know the common rules 
of genteel breeding, nor how to act in company ! And what 
better religion can you have than honesty and goodness ? 
Now, the fact is, if you want to go with Charlotte Hap- 
good, and Martha Peabody, and all them, you can go ! / 
don't envy any of 'em ! Then you can have Theology, and 
Astronomy, and everything else ! But, for my part, I like to 
see folks appear well and honest, and do all the good they 
can ; and that 's 7ny opinion of matters ! 

Eliza. But how can a person appear well without knowledge ? 

Catharine. But I s'pose you 've read somewhere, " that a 
little knowledge is a dangerous thing" ? 

Eliza. And so you mean to keep on the safe side ? 

Catharine. Can you have anything safer than virtue ? 

Eliza. Is not religion safer ? 

Cathari7ie. And is n't virtue religion ? 

Eliza. Yes, in one sense ; but what can your virtue avail, 
without a knowledge of God, and an attachment to him ? 

Catharine. Well — to be sure, I acknowledge that. 

Eliza. Well, that is what I advocate the sciences for. 

Catharine. What ! get religion out of the sciences ? 

Eliza. To be sure. 

CatJiarine. Well, so far, I agree with you. I thought you 
was talking about what nobody can understand or describe. 

Eliza. No, not I. 

Catharine. You speak, then, of natural religion ? 

Eliza. Yes, and revealed, too. In my view, the Bible is 
quite as much a help to nature, as nature to the Bible. That 
very Young, that you 've been despising here to-night, says, 
somewhere in his Night Thoughts, 

" Devotion ! daughter of astronomy ! 
An undevout astronomer is mad." 



256 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Catharine. Well, now you talk with some sense and reason. 

Eliza. That is what I always meant to talk. 

Catharine. Then you would study the sciences to know 
the source of the sciences ; or study nature to know the God 
of nature ? 

Eliza. That 's it, exactly. 

Catharine. But that is n't Charlotte Hapgood's and Martha 
Peabody's notion. 

Eliza. No matter what their notion is. They are foolish 
girls, I know, in some respects. But my idea is, that knowl- 
edge is a ministry to religion, and all religion to virtue ; and 
that a truly religious and virtuous person will always appear 
well, even if they are not skilled in all senseless accomplish- 
ments of the day. They will always be loved, and always 
respected. 

Catharine. But then you do think that we ought to know 
a little about the world ? 

Eliza. What do you mean by the world ? 

Catharine. Why, its fashion and appearances. 

Eliza. O, yes ; but then we should remember that " the 
fashion of this world passeth away," and that one ounce of 
sterling piety and virtue is worth a ton of moonshine, empty 
gentility. 

Catharine. Well — I declare, I agree with you. We 
have n't argued this matter in vain. But what do you think 
Hapgood and Peabody will say ? 

Eliza. No matter what they say. I have learnt some- 
what to despise the opinions of the world ; and feel that if 
we make the best of our own intelligence and virtue, it mat- 
ters but little what others think. " Be this thy care," says 
the poet, " to stand approved in the sight of God, though 
worlds judge thee perverse." 

Catharine. Now let me quote another passage from 
Shakspeare. 

"Oh, momentary grace of mortal men ! 
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God ! 
Who builds himself in air of your fair looks, 
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast ; 
Ready, with every nod, to tumble down 
Into the fatal bowels of the deep." 

Eliza. Good ! And Young says — 

" Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour? 
What though we wade in wealth or soar in fame ? 
Earth's highest station ends in ' Here he lies,'' 
And dust to dust concludes her noblest song." 



AND DRAMATIC. 257 

Catharine. Excellent ! Thank Heaven for this meeting ! 
We have arrived at the true philosophy of life. Let us abide 
by it, and trust all its consequences. 

Eliza. So shall we spend our lives in peace. 

Catharine. And go down to the grave in triumph. 

Eliza. And rise to a world of infinite knowledge and 
virtue. 

Catharine. Where the follies of this world never come. 

Eliza. Exactly so. Farewell. 

Catharine. Farewell. 



THE HATTER AND THE PRINTER. 

J. M. MORTON. 

John Boxer, a journeyman printer. 
James Felter, a journeyman hatter. 
Mr. Bouncer, landlord. 

Scene — A room, having several doors opening out of it, and fur- 
nished with a side-hoard, a table, stove, and chairs. 

[Enter Felter.] 

Felter. Mr. Bouncer, I wish to call your attention to a fact 
that has been evident to me for some time past — and that is, 
my coals go remarkably fast 

Mr. Bouncer. Why, Mr. Felter ! 

Felt. It is not only the case with the coals, Mr. Bouncer, 
but I have lately observed a gradual and steady increase of 
evaporation among my candles, wood, sugar, and lucifer 
matches. 

Mr. B. Now, Felter ! you surely don't suspect me ? 

Mr. Felt. I don't say I do, Mr. B ; only I wish you distinctly 
to understand, that I don't believe it 's the cat. 

Mr. B. Is there anything else you 've got to grumble about. 



sir 



Felt. Grumble ! Mr. Bouncer, do you possess such a 
thing as a dictionary ? 

Mr. B. No, sir. 

Felt. Then I '11 lend you one ; and if you turn to the let- 
ter G, you '11 find " Grumble, verb neuter — to complain with- 
out a cause." Now that 's not my case, Mr. B.; and now that 
we are upon the subject, I wish to know how it is that I fre- 
quently find my apartment full of smoke ? 

Mr. B. Why — I suppose the chimney 

22^ 



258 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Felt. The chimney does n't smoke tobacco. I 'm speaking 
of tobacco-smoke, Mr. B. How is it that 



Mr. B. Why — I suppose — yes — that must be it 



Felt. At present I am entirely of your opinion — because 
I have n't the most distant particle of an idea what you mean. 

Mr. B. Why, the gentleman who has got the attics is 
hardly ever without a pipe in his mouth — and there he sits, 
with his feet on the mantel-piece 

Felt. The mantel-piece ! That strikes me as being a con- 
siderable stretch, either of your imxagination, Mr. B., or the 
gentleman's legs. I presume you mean the fender, or the hob. 

Mr. B. Sometimes one, sometimes t' other. Well, there 
he sits for hours, and puffs away into the fire-place. 

Felt. Ah, then you mean to say that this gentleman's 
smoke, instead of emulating the example of all other sorts of 
smoke, and going up the chimney, thinks proper to affect a 
singularity by taking a contrary direction ? 

Mr.B. Why 

Felt. Then, I suppose, the gentleman you were speaking 
of is the same individual that I invariably meet coming up 
stairs when I 'm going down, and going down stairs when 
I 'm coming up ? 

Mr.B. Why — yes — I 

Felt. From the appearance of his outward man, I should 
unhesitatingly set him down as a gentleman connected with 
the printing interest. 

Mr. B. Yes, sir — and a very respectable young gentleman 
he is. 

Felt. Well, good-morning, Mr. Bouncer ! 

Mr. B. You '11 be back at your usual time, I suppose, sir ? 

Felt. Yes — nine o'clock. You need n't light my fire, in 
future, Mr. B. — I' 11 do it myself. [ExU] 

Mr. B. He 's gone at last ! I declare I was afraid Mr. 
Boxer would come in before Mr. Felter went out. Luckily, 
they 've never met yet — and what 's more, they 're not very 
likeJy to do so ; for Mr. Boxer is hard at work at a newspaper 
office al] night, and does n't come home till the morning; and 
Mr. Felter is busy making hats all day long, and does n't 
come home till night ; so that I 'm getting double rent for my 
room, and neither of my lodgers are any the wiser for it. It 
was a capital idea of mine — that it was ! But I have n't an 
instant to lose. First of al], let me put Mr. Felter's Ihings 

out of Mr. Boxer's way. [He removes a dressing-gown and slippers.] I 

was so dreadfully puzzled to know what to say when Mr. 
Felter spoke about it I 



AND DRAMATIC. 259 

Boxer. [Without.] Pooh — pooh ! Why don't you keep your 

own side of the stair-case, sir ? [Enters, dressed as a printer. Puts his 
head out at the door again, shouting.] It WaS aS mUch your fault aS 

mine, sir I I say, sir — it was as much your fault as mine, sir ! 

Mr. B. [Meeting him.] Why, Mr. Boxer, what is the matter ? 

Box. Just attend to your own business. Bouncer ! 

Mr. B. Ah ! ah ! Mr. Boxer ! what a temper you are in, 
to be sure ! I declare you 're quite pale in the face ! 

Box. What color would you have a man be, who has been 
setting up long leaders for a daily paper all night ? 

Mr. B. But, then, you 've all the day to yourself. 

Box. [Looking significantly at Bouncer.] So it SeemS ! Far be it 

from me. Bouncer, to hurry your movements, but I 

Mr. B. Ah, Mr. Boxer ! [Going.] 

Box. Stop ! Can you inform me who the individual is 
that I invariably encounter going down stairs when I'm com- 
ing up, and coming up stairs when I 'm going down ? 

Mr. B. [Confused.] Oh — yes — the gentleman in the attic, 
sir 

Box. Oh ! There 's nothing particularly remarkable about 
him, except his hats. I meet him in all sorts of hats, so that 
I have come to the conclusion that he must be individually 
alid professionally associated with the hatting interest. 

Mr. B. Yes, sir. And, by the bye, Mr. Boxer, he begged 
me to request of you, as a particular favor, that you would 
not smoke quite so much. 

Box. Did he ? Then you may tell the gentle hatter, with 
my compliments, that if he objects to the effluvia of tobacco, 
he had better domesticate himself in some adjoining parish. 

Mr. B. Oh, Mr. Boxer ! You surely would n't deprive me 

of a lodger ? [Pathetically.] 

Box. It would come to precisely the same thing. Bouncer ; 
because if I detect the slightest attempt to put my pipe out, 
I at once give you warning that I shall give you warning at 
once. 

Mr. B. Well, Mr. Boxer — do you want anything more of 
me ? 

Box. On the contrary — I 've had quite enough of you ! 

WIr. B. Well, if ever ! What next, I wonder ? [Goes out.] 

Box. Now, let me see — shall I take my nap before I kin- 
dle my fire, or shall I kindle my fire before I take my nap — 
I mean, shall I take my nap before — no — never mind! 
Now for lighting the fire. Where are my lucifers ? [Looking 

on mantel-piece, and taking a box, opens it.] NoW, 'pon my life! this is 

too bad of Bouncer — this is — by several degrees, too bad ! 



260 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

I had a whole box-full, three days ago, and now there 's only- 
one \ I 'm perfectly aware that he purloins my coals, and 
my candles, and my sugar — but I did think — oh, yes, I 
did think my lucifers would be sacred ! [Takes a candlestick off the 

mantel-piece, in which there is a very small end of candle — looks at it.] NoW, I 

should like to ask any unprejudiced person or persons their 
opinions touching this candle ! In the first place, a candle is 
an article that I don't require, because I 'm only at home in 
the day-time ; and I bought this candle on the first of May 
— calculating that it would last me three months, and here 's 
one week not half over, and the candle three parts gone ! 

[Going to stove, applies a match to kindle a fire.] HoW sleepy I am, tO be 

sure ! I 'd indulge myself with a nap, if there was anybody 
here to take care of my fire. Perhaps it will take care of 
itself. [Yawning.] I must lie down, surely, — so, here goes. 

[Goes out at a door on the right, while, after a short pause, enter Felter, hurriedly, by 
door on the left. ] 

Felt. Well, wonders will never cease ! Conscious of being 
eleven minutes and a half behind time, I was sneaking into 
the shop in a state of considerable excitement, when my 
venerable employer, with a smile of extreme benevolence on 
his aged countenance, said to me, " I shan't want you to-day 
— you can have a holiday." Thoughts of "Gravesend and 
back — fare. One Shilling," instantly suggested themselves, 
intermingled with visions of " Greenwich for Fourpence ! " 
Then came the omnibuses, and the boats — in short, I 'm 
quite bewildered ! However, I must light my fire. Holloa ! 

[Seeing the lucifer-box on table.] who presumes tO toUch my boX 

of lucifers ? Why, it 's empty ! I left one in it — I did. Hey- 
dey ! why, the fire is lighted ! Well, now, 'pon my life ! there 
is a quiet coolness about Bouncer's proceedings that 's almost 
amusing. He takes my last lucifer — my coals, and — I can't 
stand this ! I '11 go and give Bouncer a piece of my mind ! 

[On turning to go Boxer suddenly enters— they approach each other.] W^ho are 



you, sir ? 

Box. If you come to that — who are you ? 

Felt. What do you want here, sir ? 

Box. If you come to that — what do you want ? 

Felt. [Aside.] It 's the printer ! 

Box. [Aside.] It 's the hatter ! 

Felt. Go to your attic, sir 

Box. My attic, sir ? Your attic, sir ! 

Felt. Printer, I shall do you a frightful injury, if you don't 
instantly leave my apartment ! 



AND DRAMATIC. 261 

Box. Your apartment ? You mean my apartment, you 
contemptible hatter, you ! 

Felt. Your apartment? Ha! ha! — come, I like that! 
Look here, sir ! — [Produces a paper out of his pocket.] — Bouncer's re- 
ceipt for the last week's rent, sir 

Box. [Produces a paper, and holds it close to Felter'a face.] DittO, sir ! 
Felt. [Suddenly shouting.] ThicvCS ! 

Box. Murder ! 

Both. Mr. Bouncer ! [Each runs to door, calling.] 

[Mr. Bouncer runs in.] 
Mr. B. What 'S the matter ? [Felter and Bozer seize IVIr. Bouncer by 
the arm, and drag him forward.] 

Box. Instantly remove that hatter ! 
Felt. Immediately turn out that printer ! 
Mr. B. Well, — but, gentlemen 

Felt. Explain! [Pulling him round.] 

Box. Explain ! [Puiung him round.] Whose room is this ? ^ 

Felt. Yes, man — whose room is this ? 

Box. Does n't it belong to me ? 

Mr. .B. No ! 

Felt. There ! You hear, sir — it belongs to me ! 

Mr. B. No — it belongs to both of you ! 

Felt, and Box. Both of us ? 

Mr. B. Oh, gentlemen, don't be angry — but, you see, this 
gentleman — [pointing to Boxer] — only being at home in the day- 
time, and that gentleman — [pointing to Falter] — at night, I 
thought I might venture, until my little back second floor 
room was ready 

Felt, and Box. [Eagerly.] When will your little back second 
floor room be ready ? 

Mr. B. Why, to-morrow 

Felt. I 'U take it ! 

Box. So will I! 

Mr. B. Excuse me — but if you both take it, you may just 
as well stop where you are. 

Felt, and Box. True. 

Felt. I spoke first, sir 

Box. With all my heart, sir. The little back second floor 
room is yours, sir — now, go 

Felt. Go 'i Pooh — pooh! 

Mr. B. Now don't quarrel, gentlemen ! You see, there 
used to be a partition here 

Felt, and Box. Then put it up ! 

Mr. B. Nay, I '11 see if I can't get the other room ready 
this very day. Now do keep your tempers ! [Exit.] 



262 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 



Felt. What a disgusting position ! [Walking rapidly roumUhe stage. J 
jBoX. [Sitting down on chair, at one side of table, and following Feller's move- 
ments.] Will you allow me to observe, if you have not had any 
exercise to-day, you 'd better go out and take it. 

Felt. I shall not do anything of the sort, sir ! [Seating himself 

at the table, opposite Boxer] 

Box. Very well, sir. 

Felt. Very well, sir ! However, don't let me prevent you 
from going out. 

Box Don't flatter yourself, sir. 

Felt. Well, sir. 

Box. Although we are doomed to occupy the same room 
for a few hours longer, I don't see any necessity for our cut- 
ting each other's throats, sir. 

Felt. Not at all. It 's an operation that I should decidedly 
object to. 

Box. And, after all, I 've no violent animosity to you, sir. 

Felt. Nor have I any rooted antipathy to you, sir. 

Box. Besides, it was all Bouncer's fault, sir. 

Felt. Entirely, sir. [Gradually approaching chairs.] 

Box. Very well, sir ! 

Felt. Very well, sir ! [Pause.] 

Box. What, then, hinders our being friends ? 

Felt. [Both rising.] Give me yOUr hand. [They shake hands, and thea 
go out.] 



THE FRENCHMAN'S LESSON. 

HOME JOURITAL. 

FreTwhman. Ha, my friend ! I have met one very strange 
word in my lesson. Vat you call h-o-u-g-h, eh ? 

Tutor. Huff. 

Fr. Tres bien, huff; and snuff you spell s-n-o-u-g-h, eh ? 

Tu. no, no ! snuff is spelled s-n-u-ff. In fact, words in 
ough are a little irregular. 

Fr. Ah, very good ! 't is beautiful language ! H-o-u-g-h is 
huff. I will remember; and of course c-o-u-g-h is cuff; I 
have one very bad cuff, ha ? 

Tu. No, that is wrong ; we say kauff, not cuff. 

Fr. Kauff, eh ? Huff and kauff, and, pardonnez moi, how 
you call d-o-u-g-h — duff, eh ? is it duff? 

Tu. No, not duff. 

Fr. Not duff! Ah, oui ; I understand, it is dauff, ha ? 

Tu. No, d-o-u-g-h spells doe. 



AND DRAMATIC. 



263 



Ft. Doe ! It is very fine ! wonderful language ! it is doe ; 
and t-o-u-g-h is toe, certainement. My beef steak is very toe. 

Tu. O no. no ! you should say tuff. 

Fr. Tuff? Le Satan ! and the thing the farmer uses, how 
you call him, p-1-o-u-g-h, — plufF, is it? Ha, you smile, I see 
that I am wrong, it must be plauff. No ? Then it is ploe, 
like doe ? It is one beautiful language ! ver' fine — ploe ! 

Tu. You are still wrong, my friend ; it is plow. 

Fr. Plow ! Wonderful language ! I shall understand ver' 
soon. Plow, doe, kaufi'; and one more, r-o-u-g-h — what you 
call Gen. Taylor, Rauf and Eeady ? No ? Then Row and 
Ready ? 

Tu. No. R-o-u-g-h spells ruff. 

Fr, Ruff, ha ? Let me not forget. R-o-u-g-h is ruff, and 
b-o-u-g-h is buff, ha ? 

Tu. No, bow. 

Fr. Ah, 't is ver' simple ! wonderful language ! — but I have 
had vat you call e-n-o-u-g-h — ha ? vat you call him ? — he ! 
he ! ha ! ha ! 



BANISHMENT OF CATILINE. 



Scene : Senate in session, a consul in the chair; lictors present. 
Cicero concluding his speech. 

Cicero. Our long dispute must close. Take one proof more 
Of this rebellion. Lucius Catiline 
Has been commanded to attend the senate. 
He dares not come ! I now demand your votes ! 
Is he condemned to exile ? 

[Enter Catiline hastily, and as he seats himself on one side, all the senators go over to 
the other.] 

Cic. [Turning to Catiline ] Here I repeat the charge, to gods and 
Of treasons manifold ; — that, but this day, [men, 

He has received despatches from the rebels ; 
That he has leagued with deputies from Gaul 
To seize the province ; nay, he has levied troops, 
And raised his rebel standard ; that, but now, 
A meeting of conspirators was held 
Under his roof, with mystic rites and oaths, 
Pledged round the body of a murdered slave. 
To these he has no answer. 



264 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR. 

Catiline. [Rising calmly. i Conscript fathers ! 
I do not rise to waste the night in words : 
Let that plebeian talk ; 't is not my trade : 
But here I stand for right ! — let him show proofs ! — 
For Roman right ! though none, it seems, dare stand 
To take their share with me. Ay, chister there ! 
Cling to your master — judges, Romans — slaves ! 
His charge is false ! I dare him to his proofs ! 
You have my answer ; let my actions speak ! [tor done ? 

Cic, [Interrupting.] Doods shall convince you ! Has the trai- 
Cat. But this I will avow, that I have scorned, 
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong ; 
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword, 
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back. 
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts 
The gates of honor on me, — turning out 
The Roman from his birthright, — and for what ? 

To fling your offices to every slave ; [Looking round him.] 

Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb; 
Arid having wound their loathsome track to the top 
Of this huge, mouldering monument of Rome, 
Hang hissing at the nobler men below. 

Cic. This is his answer ! Must I bring more proofs ? 
Fathers, you know there lives not one of us. 
But lives in peril of his midnight sword. 
Lists of proscription have been handed round, 
In which your properties are made 
Your murderer's hire. 

[A cry without, " More prisoners !" Enter an officer with letters for Cicero, who, after 
looking at them, sends them round the senate.] 

Cic. Fathers of Rome ! If men can be convinced 
By proof, as clear as daylight, here it is ! 
Look on these letters ! Here 's a deep laid plot 
To wreck the provinces ; a solemn league, 
Made with all form and circumstance. The time 
Is desperate, — all the slaves are up, — Rome shakes ! — 
The heavens alone can tell how near our graves 
We stand even here ! The name of Catiline 
Is foremost in the league. He was their king. — 
Tried and convicted traitor ! Go from Rome ! [thrones ! 

Cat. [Rising haughtily.] Come, consecrated lictors, from your 

[To the senate.] 

Fling down your sceptres ! — take the rod and axe, 
And make the murder, as you make the law ! 



AND DRAMATIC. 



265 



Cic. [To an olBcer, and interrupting Catiline.] Give Up the reCOld of 
his banishment. [The officer gives it to the consul.] 

Cat. [With indignation ] Banished froHi Rome ! What 's ban- 
ished, but set free 
From daily contact of the things I loathe ? 
" Tried and convicted traitor ! " — who says this ? 
Who '11 prove it, at his peril, on my head ? 
Banished ? I thank you for 't ! It breaks my chain ! 
I held some slack allegiance till this hour — 
But now my sword 's my own. Smile on, my lords ! 
I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes, 
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs, 
I have within my heart's hot cells shut up, 
To leave you in your lazy dignities ! 
But here I stand and scoff you ! — here I fling 
Hatred and full defiance in your face ! 
Your consul 's merciful. For this, all thanks ! — 
He dares not touch a hair of Catiline ! 

CoTisul. [Reads.] " Lucius Sergius Catiline ! by the decree 
of the senate, you are declared an enemy and alien to the 
state, and banished from the territory of the commonwealth ! " 
[Turning to the lictors.] Lictors, drive the traitor from the temple! 

Cat. [Frantic] " Traitor ! " I go — but I return ! This trial ! • — 
Here I devote your senate ! — I 've had wrongs, 
To stir a fever in the blood of age. 
And make the infant's sinews strong as steel. 
This day 's the birth of sorrows ! — This hour's work 
Will breed proscriptions ! Look to your hearths, my lords ! 
For there henceforth shall sit, for household gods, 
Shapes hot from Tartarus ! — all shames and crimes ; — 
Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn ; 
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup ; 
Naked Rebellion, with the torch and axe. 
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones ; 
Till Anarchy comes down on you like night, 
And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave ! [from Rome ! 

Senators. [Rising in confusion, cry out,] Go, enemy and parricide, 

Cic. Expel him lictors ! clear the senate-house ! 

Cat. [Struggling through the lictors surrounding him.] 

I go ! but not to leap the gulf alone. 

I go ! but when I come, 'twill be the burst 

Of ocean in the earthquake — rolling back 

In swift and mountainous ruin ! Fare you well ! — 

You build my funeral pi]e, but your best blood [return ! 

Shall quench its flame ! [To the lictors] Back, slaves ! I will 

23 [Exeunt.] 



266 DIALOGUES FABIILIAR 



A SCENE FROM VENICE PRESERVED. 

' T. OTWAY. 
[Enter Priuli and Jaffier.] 

Priuli. No more ! I '11 hear no more ! begone, and leave me ! 

Jaffier. Not hear me ! by my sufferings, but you shall ! 
My lord — my lord ! I 'm not that abject wretch 
You think me. Patience ! where 's the distance throws 
Me back so far, but I may boldly speak 
In right, though proud oppression will not hear me ? 

Pri. Have you not wronged me ? 

Jaf. Could my nature e'er 
Have brooked injustice, or the doing wrongs, 
I need not now thus low have bent myself, 
To gain a hearing from a cruel father. — 
Wronged you ? 

Pri. Yes, wronged me ! in the nicest point, 
The honor of my house, you 've done me v^ong. 
You may remember, (for I now will speak, 
And urge its baseness,) when you first came home 
From travel, with such hopes as made you looked on, 
By all men's eyes, a youth of expectation. 
Pleased with your growing virtue, I received you ; 
Courted, and sought to raise you to your merits ; 
My house, my table, nay, my fortune too, 
My very self, was yours ; you might have used me 
To your best service ; like an open friend 
I treated, trusted you, and thought you mine ; 
When, in requital of my best endeavors, 
You treacherously practised to undo me ; 
And stole her from my bosom, 
My only child ! Oh ! Belvidera ! 

Jaf. 'T is to me you owe her : 
Childless had you been else, and in the grave 
Your name extinct ; no more Priuli heard of. 
You may remember, scarce five years are past, 
Since, in your brigantine, you sailed to see 
The Adriatic wedded by our duke ; 
And I was with you : your skilful pilot 
Dashed us upon a rock; when, to your boat. 
You made for safety ; entered first yourself ; 
The affrighted Belvidera followed next. 
As she stood trembling on the vessel's side, 
Was by a wave washed off into the deep ; 



AND DRAMATIC. 



267 



When instantly I plunged into the sea, 
And, buffeting the billows to her rescue, 
Kedeemed her life with half the loss of mine. 
Like a rich conquest, in one hand I bore her, 
And with the other dashed the saucy waves, 
That thronged and pressed to rob me of my prize. 
I brought her unto your despairing arms ; 
Indeed you thanked me ; but a nobler gratitude 
Rose in her soul ; for from that hour she loved me, 
Till for her life she paid me with herself. 

Fri. You stole her from me ! like a thief you stole her, 
At dead of night ! that cursed hour you chose 
To rifle me of all my heart held dear ! 
May the hard hand of a vexatious need 
Oppress and grind you, till at last you find 
The curse of disobedience all your portion ! 

Jaf. Were I that thief, the doer of such wrongs 
As you upbraid me with, what hinders me 
But I might send her back to you with contumely, 
And court ray fortune where she would be kinder ? 

Pri. You dare not do 't ! 

Jaf. Indeed, my lord, I dare not. 
My heart, that awes me, is too much my master : 
Three years are passed since first our vows were plighted, 
During which time, the world must bear me witness, 
I 've treated Belvidera like your daughter, 
The daughter of a senator of Venice : 
Distinction, place, attendance, and observance, 
Due to her birth, she always has commanded : 
Out of my little fortune I 've done this ; 
Because (though hopeless e'er to win your nature) 
The world might see I loved her for herself; 
Not as the heiress of the great Priuli. 

Pri. No more ! 

Jaf. Yes, all, and then adieu forever ! 
There 's not a wretch, that lives on common charity, 
But 's happier than me ; for I have known 
The precious sweets of plenty ; every night 
Have slept with soft content about my head, 
And never woke but to a joyful morning : 
Yet now must fall, like a full ear of corn. 
Whose blossom 'scaped, yet 's withered in the ripening ! 

Pri. Home, and be humble ! study to retrench ; 
Discharge the lazy servants in thy hall, 
Those pageants of thy folly ! 



S68 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Reduce the glittering trappings of thy wife 
To humble weeds, fit for thy little state ; 
Then, to some suburb cottage, both retire ; - 
Drudge to feed loathsome life ! 
Home, home, I say ! [Exit.] 

Jaf. Yes, if my heart would let me — 
This proud, this swelling heart ! — home I would go, 
But that my doors are hateful to my eyes, 
Filled and crowded with gaping creditors : 
I 've now not fifty ducats in the world, 
Yet still I am in love, and please with ruin ! 
O Belvidera ! Oh ! she is my wife — 
And we will bear our wayward fate together, 
But ne'er know comfort more ! 

[Enter Belvidera.] 

Belvidera. My lord, my love, my refuge ! 
Happy my eyes when they behold thy face ! 
My heavy heart will leave its doleful beating. 
At sight of thee, and bound with sprightly joys. 
Oh, smile, as formerly you aye were wont, 
And cheer my fainting soul ! 

Jaf. As when our loves 
Were in their spring ! Has, then, my fortune changed thee ? 
Art thou not, Belvidera, still the same. 
Kind, good, and tender, as my arms first found thee ? 
If thou art altered, where shall I have harbor ? 
Where ease my loaded heart ? Oh ! where complain ? 

Bel. Does this appear like change, or love decaying, 
When thus I throw myself into thy presence, 
With all the resolution of strong truth ? 

Jaf. Can there, in woman, be such glorious faith ? 
Sure, all ill stories of thy sex are false ! 
Oh, woman ! lovely woman ! Nature made thee 
To temper man : we had been brutes without you ! 

Bel. If love be treasure, we '11 be wondrous rich ; 
Oh ! lead me to some desert wide and wild, 
Barren as are our fortunes, where my soul 
May have its vent, where I may tell aloud 
To the high heavens, and every listening planet. 
With what a boundless stock my bosom 's fraught ! 

Jaf Oh, Belvidera ! doubly I 'm a beggar : 
Undone by fortune, and in debt to thee! 
Want, worldly want, that hungry, meagre fiend, 
Is at my heels, and chases me in view ! 
Canst thou bear cold and hunger ? Can these limbs, 



AND DRAMATIC. - 269 

Framed for tlie tender offices of love, 

Endure the bitterness of smarting poverty ? 

When banished by our miseries abroad, 

(As suddenly we shall be,) to seek out 

1*1 some far climate, where our names are strangers, 

Wilt thou then talk thus to me ? Wilt thou then 

Hush my cares thus, and shelter me with love ? 

Bel. Though the bare earth be all our resting-place, 
Its roots our food, some cliff our habitation. 
My deep affection shall be none the less ! [her ! 

Jaf. Hear this, you Heavens, and wonder how you made 
Eeign, reign, ye monarchs, that divide the world ! 
Busy rebellion ne'er will let you know 
Tranquillity and happiness like mine ; 
Like gaudy ships, the obsequious billows fall. 
And rise again, to lift you in your pride ; 
They wait but for a storm, and then devour you ! 
I, in my private bark, already wrecked. 
Like a poor merchant, driven to unknown land, 
That had, by chance, packed up his choicest treasure 
In one dear casket, and saved only that : 
Since I must wander further on the shore. 
Thus prize my little, but my precious store, 
Resolved to scorn and trust my fate no more. [Exeunt.] 





THE SISTER BAND. 




N. T. MONROE. 


LOVE. 


LONG-SUFFERING. 


FAITH. 


JOY. 


GENTLENESS. 


MEEKNESS. 


PEACE. 


GOODNESS. 


TEMPERANCE 



Love. 
I came, the first of a radiant band, 
Sent out on the earth by God's own hand ; 
I came ere the breath of life was given 
To him who was made in the image of Heaven. 
But darkness rose, and the serpent's breath 
On the garden fell, with the scourge of death ! 
Our band was broken — and since that hour 
We 've met no more as in Eden's bower. 
Our meetings are short, and we find no home. 
But apart o'er the world our spirits roam, 
And the spirit of Love is oft-times lone. 
23=^ 



270 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Joy. 

Not now alone — thy sister is here, 

The next who came to this mortal sphere. 

We meet not oft — the last was where 

Two hearts were pledged with vow and prayer ; 

I tarried not long, — I might not stay 

When light and hope were passing away ! 

How long dost thou thy vigil keep, 

With hearts that mourn, and eyes that weep ? 

Love. 

I staid till the last, low prayer was said, 
And the living stood by the silent dead ; 
And our sister Peace, who cometh now, 
With her soft, bright eye, and holy brow, 
I left her there by the mourner's side, 
To soothe the heart so sorely tried. 
Sweet sister, O say, hast thou found a home ? 
Has the world a spot thou canst call thy own ? 

Peace. 

Sisters, we met at the infant's bed. 

O'er his rosy sleep my spirit I shed. 

And left ye there — and to manhood turned, — 

His cheek was flushed, and his forehead burned ; 

Too much of earthly passion was there, 

And I turned where a maiden knelt in prayer, 

And I dwelt with her till her spirit fled. 

And the mortal frame lay still and dead. 

But 't was not my home ; and, sisters sweet, 

I pined for a spot where we all might meet. 

Love and Joy. 

Long time we stood by that infant's bed. 
O'er his rosy path our spirits shed. 
And scattered flowers around his way, 
And taught his little hands to play. 
We watched him Avell, till manhood came. 
And with it ardent hopes of fame ; 
Till his soul grew sick in his weary way. 
Till his heart almost forgot to pray. 
We left him then with his empty name, 
For Love and Joy dwell not with fame ! 



AND DRAMATIC. 271 

Long-suffering. 
Hail, sisters sweet ! we meet once more ; 
Have ye found a home — are your wanderings o'er ? 
For I fain would rest ; — I come from a scene, 
Where, my sisters sweet, ye all have been ; — 
A close, a darkened, a stifled room. 
Where sorrow and sickness have found a home. 
There 's an aching- brow, there 's a breaking heart, 
There 's a soul that longs from earth to part, . 
Still bearing on, as it ever hast. 
Through all the woes of the bitter past, 
And murmuring not, but in deepest trust 
Awaiting the mandate, " dust to dust ! " 
Twin sisters sweet ! I left ye there, — 
Has he met his God with trustful prayer ? 

Gentleness and Goodn£SS. 
He waiteth the summons ; 

And calmly he lies, 
As lieth the clouds 

In the sunset skies ; 
And calmly as sinketh 

The sun to his rest. 
So sinketh he now 

On his master's breast. 
We have smoothed his pillow, 

And cheered his heart, 
And taken from death 

The bitterest smart. 
We left him with Faith, 

And she cometh now. 
With her beaming eye 

And her glorious brow. 

Faith. 
He has gone to his God, — triumphant he passed ! 
Undimmed is his glory, — high trust to the last. 
I stood by his side till the last look was given ; 
I stood by his side till his soul was in heaven. 
Why meet we here ? Can we find no home ? 
Hath the earth no place we can call our own ? 
Hath the world no spot where we all may dwell, 
And know not, and fear not, a sad farewell ? 
Say, sister meek, what tale dost thou bring, — 
Through what scenes hast thou passed, with thy gentle wing ? 



'272 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Meekness. 
The gentle of earth 

My spirit loves best ; 
With the young and pure 

I find sweet rest. 
I soar not afar — 

My flights are not high — 
I dwell in a tone, 

In the glance of an eye. 
In the mother, who gazes 

With heartfelt joy. 
And watches the sports 

Of her infant boy. 

Faith. 
But sister, sweet sister ! I 've met thee oft, — 
Thy voice is so low, and thy tone so soft. 
Thou art loved by all, and .the glad and gay 
Both welcome thy coming, and urge thy stay. 
But the last of our sister band is nigh. 
With her glad, free step, and joyous eye. 
As if she had brought whole realms at her feet, — 
Say, what are thy tidings, sister sweet ? 

Temiperance. 
Sisters, all hail ! and I am the last ? 
O'er all the world has my spirit passed. 
The work has begun — the mighty, the strong, 
And nations have blessed it ; and loud is the song 
Which swells o'er the earth. The wicked hath turned 
From his wayward path, and the heart that spurned 
At all that is good, is a suppliant now. 
And low at the feet of a Saviour must bow. 
Do we meet to rejoice ? there is deep joy 
Where the mother weeps o'er her penitent boy ! 
Do we meet to mourn o'er the sins of earth ? 
Then gird on our armor, and go we forth. 
To soften the hearts of mankind by our power, 
For high is our gift, and glorious our dower; — 
But which of our band, O say, can tell 
Where again we shall meet, and say not farewell ? 

Faith. 
If we all meet again. 

On the earth, ne'er to part, 
Sweet sisters, 't will be 

In the Christian's heart. 



AND DRAMATIC. 



273 



But the home of our spirit 
On earth is not given ; 

It is with our God, 

Mid the glories of heaven. 



THE FOUR WISHES. 

ANOKYMOUS. 

First Voice. 
I would shine in diamonds, in colored gems be drest ; 
The rainbow for my mantle, the stars upon my breast, — 
Feathers, fringes, flowers, and lace, all rich and gay attire, — 
Should make the humble know their place, and all the world 

admire ; 
And I would lead the ton, by wealth's commanding power ; 
Thus joy should fill my golden cup till life's last lingering 

hour. 

Second Voice. 
I would be a beauty, and flash my brilliant eye ; 
My cheeks should opening roses show, my lips a vermeil dye ; 
My alabaster brow and neck should dazzle all who gazed ; 
My dimple smiles should win all hearts, where'er my beauty 

blazed. 
Sol would charm the world by my bewitching power ; 
And thus fill up my cup of bliss, till life's last lingering hour. 

Third Voice. 
Give me nor wealth nor beauty! — I ask a spirit keen ; 
A wit that sparkles while it burns, that cuts as soon as seen { 
Like a blazing comet, I would trace a bright, portentous path. 
And all should worship at my shrine, or tremble at my wrath. 
Thus I would sweep the world by wit's subduing power. 
And fill my joyous crystal cup, till life's last lingering hour. 

Fourth Voice. 
These tempting gifts I dare not ask, — they blight the soul 

when given ; 
Oh ! rather grant me a pure heart, which guides us straight to 

heaven ; 
A gentle spirit from above, to lead in wisdom's ways. 
To make me humble in my youth, and useful all my days. 
And if I always rule my life by virtue's holy power. 
My cup of bliss will overflow, beyond my latest hour. 



274 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

ON CURIOSITY. 

COMM. SCRIPT. 
FOUR BOYS WILLIAM, LOUIS, JAMES, AND HENRY. 

Louis. I 've found something ! Bill, you can't guess 
what it is ! 

William. What is it ? [Turning to James.] James, Louis has 
found something. 

James. What is it ? Let me see, won't you ? 

Louis. O, I shan't let anybody see it till they guess what 

it is. [He holds his hand close.] 

Wil. Is it money ? 

James. Is it a knife ? 

Louis. Guess on, and I '11 bow my head when you 're right. 

Wil. Tell us the first letter ! 

James. Yes ; it is not fair to keep us waiting so. 

Louis. Ho ! it belongs to me ; I needn't tell any one unless 
I choose to. 

James. You '11 tell us, won't you ? 

Louis. I don't know that ! 

Wil. Then, James, we won't play with him, will we ? 

James. No; and we won't show him anything we get. 
Father 's going to buy me something to-morrow, — it 's my 
birth day. 

Wil. What is it, Jim ? Let me see it — won't you ? 

James. Yes, but Louis shan't, if he don't tell me what he 's 
found. 

Louis. Ho ! I don't believe it will be much. 

Wil. I guess it will, for his father is able to buy him a 
great deal, — is he not, Jim ? 

James. Yes, it will be worth, — I shan't say how much. 

Louis. 'Cause you don't know. It will not be worth a pin 
sight. 

Wil. It will, too ; come, Louis, let us see it. 

James. Poh ! I don't believe he has anything. 

Louis. I have too ! Just see how large my hand is ! I 
can't hardly shut it. 

James. Let 's get it away from him, Bill, will you ? 

Louis. I should like to see you try. I can master both of 
you. 

James. O, O, Bill ! I 've found something too ! [Snatches some- 
thing from the ground.] Look here. 

Louis. I don't believe it. 

James. I have — have n't I, Bill ? 



AND DRAMATIC. 



275 



Wil. Yes, indeed ; I would n't exchange. 
James. Nor I either. 
Louis. Let us see it. 
Wil. Poh ! I would n't waste my breath. 
James. Well, you will not see it; come, Bill, let's go 
home. 

Wil. Yes, I will show my new [Louis comes up to listen.] 

new — you need not listen, Louis ; I shan't tell. You need 
not follow us ; you will not know. 

[Enter Henry.] 

Henry. What is the matter, boys ? I thought you were 
the best friends in the world. 

Wil. And so we were ; but Louis has found something, and 
won't tell us what it is. 

Louis. I told them to guess, and they would not. 

James. We could not ; but I 've found something, and he 
shan't see it. 

Henry. How foolish, boys, to get angry at such trifles ! 
Nothing you have, even though it is gold, can be of more 
value than your friendship for each other. 

Wil. Louis began it ! — he ought to have shown us what 
he 'd found. 

Louis. Well ! you began to get mad right ofT, before I had 
a chance to tell. 

James. O Louis, what a story ! 

Henry. See, now, what a great fire a little spark kindleth. 
Louis, if you had shown what you had found, you would 
have saved this trouble. 

Louis. Jim has. found something too, and would not let me 
see it ; and he says he 's going to have a birth-day present to- 
morrow, but I shan't be any the wiser. And Bill 's got some- 
thing new at home ; but I don't care 

Henry. Now, boys, listen to me. You have all done 
wrong. Come, Louis, — you was the first trespasser ; show 
what you found. [Louis hesitates.] Come ! 

Louis. 0, it is n't much. I only wanted to see what they 'd 
say. 

Henry. You wanted to excite their curiosity, and exercise 
a little superiority. Well, boys, I would n't care to know what 
it is. If it was a prize, he 'd show it quick enough. 

Louis. Ask Jim what he 's got ; if he '11 show, I will ; and 
what has Bill got at home ? 

Henry. Come, James, open your hand. 

James. Pooh, it 's only a stick ! 



276 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 



Louis. And mine is only a cent ! 

Wil. And I 've got at home a kitten ! 

Henry. Now, boys, see how foolish your quarrel ; here 
you were, all by the ears, almost ready to fight — for what ? — 
a stick, a cent, a KITTEN ! Just think of it ! weeks would 
have passed, and you would not have spoken to each other. 
And so with many quarrels, that begin in trifles, and end 
only in bloodshed and the prison. Beware, boys, of such 
tempers ! 

Louis. Ho ! I did n't mean anything. I just wanted to teaze 
them a little, to see if they were good Yankees at guessing ! 
Who could n't have guessed a cent ? 

James. And who could n't have guessed a stick ? 

Wil. And who could n't thought of a new kitten ? 

Henry. That 's enough. Now, be frank with each other ; 
tell your good luck, and take a joke as a joke, and not make 
a serious affair of it. 

Wil. Oh, we don't care for it now, — do we, James ? 

James. No ; come, Louis, we won't think anything more 
about it, will we ? 

Louis. No ; I did n't mean anything. 

Henry. I 'm glad to see you ready to forgive, and we can 
all go home happy now. Come. fAU gooff.] 



THE LADIES' WREATH — A TOPIC. 

H. A. H. WAIT. 

Characters considered : — Joanna Baillie ; Hannah More ; 

Anna Letitia Barbauld ; Caroline Bowles Southey ; Lydia 
Huntley Sigourney ; Felicia Dorothea Hemans. 

First Speaker. It has been asserted that females are unfit 
to pursue the higher walks of science and imagination, in which 
the nobler sex delight to tread ; — but is the stigma just ? 

Second Speaker. That it is not, let her answer to whom 
science is no less indebted than to her illustrious father ; and 
let the sweet remembered notes, also, of Rhyllon's noble poetess 
respond. 

Third Speaker. Why, then, if woman has a mind capa- 
ble of lofty thoughts and noble aspirations, does she submit to 
spend her life, the gaudy butterfly, flitting from flower to 
flower, to suck up honeyed words of praise. 

Fourth Speaker. How can even the noblest mind expand 



AND DRAMATIC. 277 

beneath the culture hitherto bestowed on woman's intellect ? 
While exercise of the most rigid character has been imposed 
upon the mind of man, woman has been taught to feel that 
her mission is fulfilled when she has made herself mistress 
of a few accomplishments. Thus is her taste vitiated, her 
mind perverted, her influence misdirected, and her heart 
rendered, too often, the receptacle of all that is vain, foolish, 
and unprofitable. Thus not unfrequently has her life been all 
beauty without soul — an ornament without intrinsic value. 
Men have placed around her mind a barrier almost insur- 
mountable, and then, forsooth, they have exclaimed. How feeble 
the intellect which cannot burst its bands ! And when, per- 
chance, one noble mind breaks forth, how is she made the gaze 
and wonder of a stupid world ! She is honored and admired^ 
it is true ; but she is elevated above the pleasures and delights 
of life, upon a marble pedestal, and deemed as cold and heart- 
less quite. She is condemned to see others far beneath her 
laving their brows in the pure fount of affection, whilst hers 
is parched and withered beneath the laurel wreath which 
binds it. 

Fifth Speaker. Shall it always be thus ? — shall man alone 
rove freely in the field of science, and wander, at will, in the 
gardens of literature, and woman always be denied full free- 
dom to walk therein ? 

Second. S. Surely it shall not be thus ; for many choice 
spirits have already arisen to assert their claims to a higher 
destiny, and woman will, I doubt not, ere long learn her true 
position. And from among the fair flowers of female char- 
acter, which have shed their fragrance upon the hearts open 
to their influence, let us cull a ladies' wreath of fame. And 
first, Joanna Baillie, the sister of Shakspeare, as she has been 
called ; — her genius may be likened to the splendid " Aloe 
flower," which opens but once in a century ; so rare, indeed, 
that it is regarded rather as a wonder than a blessing. 

Sixth Speaker. Her literary career began in early life, and 
has been pursued with unremitted ardor. The great care she 
has ever manifested in the revision of her productions affords 
an excellent example of patience and industry for our imita- 
tion. 

Fourth S. Her power seems to have shone concentrated in 
one burning ray — the knowledge of the human heart ; and 
this knowledge she has illustrated in her poems, with the cool 
judgment of the philosopher, and the pure, warm feeling of the 
woman. 

Seventh Speaker. Probably no woman ever did so much to 
24- 



278 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

promote the cause of moral and social improvement as Miss 
Hannah More ; certainly, no one ever more consistently sub- 
served the best interests of her sex. 

First S. She possessed, I think, more talent than genius ; 
more judgment than imagination ; and her poetry, though good 
in every respect, seldom merits a higher epithet. 

Seventh S. Her honored name may be placed in our wreath, 
to be an amulet as well as an ornament. If there be any 
hesitation in designating it by a flower, it is because it deserves 
something less perishable ; — it is the " Evergreen pine," the 
emblem of piety and philosophy, which time has no power to 
wither. 

Eighth Speaker. How vividly comes over my heart the 
remembrance of Mrs. Barbauld's " Hymn in Prose !" Her 
name will ever live in my memory, mingling with the pleasant 
recollections of childhood. 

Third S. The genius of the good lady you mention seems 
never to have incited her to a wide range or a lofty flight, yet 
like the " Lavender," whose rich fragrance makes us prize its 
simple flower, her poetry will be treasured, because imbued 
with those pure and enduring qualities of truth and feeling 
which require little ornament. 

Sixth S. Who, that is conscious of possessing a soul that 
longs for immortality, does not feel that all high poetry must 
be religious ? There are aspirations of the mind for something 
higher, better, lovelier, than can be found on earth, and it is 
the holiest office of poesy to embody in language those vague 
longings for purity and happiness, and to paint on the dark 
and torn canvass of human life transparent and glowing pic- 
tures of heavenly beauty and tranquillity. 

Ninth Speaker. Few writers have done this with more 
power than Mrs. Caroline Bowles Southey. 

Tenth Speaker. There is, indeed, a sincerity, a devoted- 
ness, ay, an enjoyment, too, in her religious musings, which 
show that Christian feelings have elevated the poetic senti- 
ment, in her heart, till she can sing of the better land with the 
sure and sweet conviction of its reality. As the " Myrtle" is 
all beautiful, — leaf, flower, and tree, — so is her poetry all 
worthy of our admiration and esteem. 

Eleventh Speaker. I propose for our wreath the name of 
Lydia Huntley Sigourney, the sweetest poetess of our own 
fair land. Her genius brightens in the Muses' smile. The 
delicate spirit of her fancy brings sounds — sweet airs, that 
give delight and hurt not. Her fine perception for the har- 
monious and appropriate appears in the smooth flow of her 



AND DRAMATIC. 279 

lines, and in the perfect adaptation of her language to the 
subject. 

Eighth S. These qualities, united with tender feelings and 
a naturally contemplative turn of mind, have, it seems to me, 
inclined her to elegiac poetry. The knell that summons the 
mourner to weep awakens her sympathy, and the tender 
dirge is sung to comfort the bereaved. She allows not the 
trophy of death to be left at the tomb, but shows us the resur- 
rection and the life, thus elevating the hopes of the Christian, 
and chastening the thoughts of the worldly-minded. Like the 
"Imperial Passion Flower," her genius has ever been 

" Consecrate to Salem's peaceful king ; 
Though fair as any gracing Beauty's bower, 
Yet linked to sorrow like a holy thing." 

Twelfth Speaker. But we must not forget that highly gifted 
daughter of song — Felicia Dorothea Hemans. Her harp, like 
the " Rose," soothes and delights alike the humble and the 
elevated. 

Ninth S. 
Let others thank thee, — 't was for them 
Thy soft leaves thou didst wreathe ; — 
The red rose wastes itself in sighs 
Whose sweetness others breathe ! 

Twelfth S. Well said. The mighty spell by which she 
wrought was love, in all its purest, holiest, sweetest emotions 
of household affections, patriotism and devotion ; and while 
love shall have a place in the human breast, her name shall 
live green in the memory of the race. 

Fy^th S. Sorrow, care, and the " wasting task and lone" of 
her minstrel vocation, caused a premature close of her life ; and 
she died as stars go dovtni, her genius bright and expanding 
till the last. Though she has gone from us, yet the light of 
her intellect will never be dimmed, nor the sweetness of her 
harp be forgotten. 

Te7ith S. 

We would not win thee back, — thy lyre, even here, 

Breathed the undying music of the sky ; 

Its tone was not of earth, — too sweetly clear 

To blend with aught of life's sad harmony. 

Then joy for thee, crowned one ! forever wearing 

Immortal glory on thy radiant brow ; 

Bard of eternity ! in triumph bearing 

A lofty part in heaven's sweet hymn, even now. 



280 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

TATTLEVILLE SEWING SOCIETY. 



Ned Madcap, a wild, boisterous youth, from college. 

Amanda Madcap, Ned's sister. 

Lucy De Vere and Araminta Flambeau, school-girl friends of 

Amanda, from New York city. 
Aunt Mary, a taciturn old lady, fond of Ned, her nephew. 
Mrs. Trimmins, president of Tattleville Sewing Society. 
Miss Snivel, a young lady past a certain age. 
Mrs. Arrack, Mrs. Bonion, and Mrs. Racket, acting members 

of Tattleville Sewing Society. 
Betty, a maid at all work. 

Scene I. A room in the house of Ned's father, in which are 
Amanda Madcap and her two city friends. 

[Enter Ned — court- plaster on his face — singing loudly,] 
" A wet sheet and a flowing sea, 

And a wind that follows fast. 
That fills the " [Discovering them.] 

Ah ! beg your pardon, ladies — excuse niy boisterousness — 
I was 

Amanda. [Turning to him.] Ned, Lucy De Vere and Araminta 
Flambeau — very dear friends, of whom you've heard me 
speak 

Ned. [Bowing.] Oh, such a lark ! — excuse me, ladies — but 
I must tell you, 'Man ; — you see my face, eh ? Well, that flat 
of a Verisoft tried to dodge me in the library — got so bad 
that he actually ran out doors — after him go I, through the 
window to save time and expense — nabbed him, and stowed 
him away in farmer Hastings' granary. [Rubbing his hands in glee; 

— Miss Flambeau laughs loudly — Miss De Vere listens contemptuously.] 

Aman. Well done, Tna chevalier I — and what do you pro- 
pose doing with yourself after dinner ? Can't you be at our 
service ? 

Ned. Can't, 'Man, — can't, 'pon honor ! — full of business — 
every moment precious. Nahum tells me the village Sewing 
Society, for the dissemination of knitting-work and the propa- 
gation of scandal, holds its monthly meeting this afternoon. 
[Laughing.] I 've nothing to serve but my country, you know, 
and can't refrain from paying my devoirs to them. I '11 meet 
you in the evening, however. Au revoir. [Ned exit.] 

Miss Flambeau. [Laughing.] Incorrigible wag, 'Manda, is n't 
he ? I shall set my cap for him. 

Miss De Vere. Will you accompany me to the library ? I 
must reperuse my sweet Lalla Rookh. 



AND DRAMATIC. 



281 



Aman. Certainly — anything. [Exeunt.] 

[Enter Aunt Mary, reading a note.] 

Aunt Mary. "Mrs. Trimmins — 11 o'clock. You are 
aware that the monthly meeting is holden this P. M. As 
my girl Jane is sick, you would confer a favor on me by ac- 
commodating me with your Betty for the afternoon and even- 
ing. Your friend, Priscilla Trimmins. P. S. Have you heard 
that awful story about William Leggett ? I shall call and tell 

you early to-morrow morning. P. T." [Foldingthenote, and placing 
it in her pocket.] Betty TTLUSt gO 't is SUch a gOod objeCt ! [Calls.] 

Betty ! 

Betty. [Entering.] Did you call, mum ? 

Aunt M. Yes — you may go over to Mrs. Trimmins and 
help her about the Sewing Society this afternoon. 

Betty. [Courtesying.] Yos, mum. [Going.] 

Aunt M. Here, Betty — as I can't go myself, here 's a pair 
of all wool socks you may give Mrs. Trimmins, as my contri- 
bution to the benevolent association. [Giving them to Betty.] 

Betty. [Courtesying.] Yes, mum. 

[Exeunt — Betty to the right — Aunt IVTary to the left.] 

Scene II. A room in the house of Mrs. Trimmins. 

[Mrs. Trimmins — Bonion — Snivel — Arrack — and Racket, sitting round the room, 
knitting and sewing. A work-table, with work-basket, &c., in back-ground.] 

Mrs. Trimmins. Yes — I think he should be severely repri- 
manded — his conduct brings disgrace on our quiet village. 

Miss Snivel. Oh, 't is lamentable to think how our rising 
generations is growing into pervarsity ! There 's Sam Samp- 
son, whose smoked I don't know how many cigars this week ! 
— Tabitha Tattle told me that she had counted him fourteen 
times, and was purty ^positive once more — and 

Mrs. Racket. Yes — and don't you think Dorothy Jones 
says 't is a fact that young Merry's wife has two bran new silk 
dresses 

Mrs. Arrack. Mercy! Did you ever ? [Hoidingup both hands.] 

Mrs. Bonion. What a provoking little gossip that Hannah 
Parrot is ! — I do declare I never heard such a tongue in my 
life 

Mi's. R. Don't mention her name ! — I 'm disgusted with 
the whole family ! — such a supercilious, good-for-noth- 
ing 

Mrs. T. Don't talk so rudely, Mrs. Racket — don't! — we 

should always love our neighbors, you know. I 'm heartily 

opposed to all manner of abuse. Miss Snivel, did" you hear 

how Deacon Brackett's darter talked sarcy to her mother last 

24^ 



282 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 



Wednesday? Oh, she's an impudent, niggardly, slovenly 
vixen ! — I rrmst tell you about it 

All. Oh, do do ! [Dropping their work, and listening eagerly.] 

Mrs. T. You see, Jemima Brackett 's been off and on 

more 'n three weeks 

Mrs. B. It 's more 'n five — [counting her fingers] no — it 's six 

— I remember how 

Mrs. R. Oh, no, — don't you mind — 't was the day afore 
Salome Sprague's youngest boy was three years old 

Mrs. T. [Bell rings.] Who cau it be ? I '11 run up stairs, and 
look out of the winder. [Exit.] 

[Enter Betty, with a bundle — all crowd around and examine.] 

Mrs. A. P'raps it may be a, contribution from some of the 
honorary members — let 's untie it. 

Miss S. Let it be till Mrs. Trimmins comes — her name 's 
on it. 

Mrs. R. I 'm dying to see it ! — I know it 's something for 

our Serciety — I '11 just peek into it ! [Peeps into a comer of the bundle.] 

Yes — 't is 't is — [clapping her ha-nds] — I can See Something black 

— may be it 's a present from — [pausing] — I wonder uoho ? 

[Enter Mrs. Trimmins.] 

Mrs. B. Come quick, Mrs. Trimmins — here 's something 
for you. We are confident it 's for the Serciety, and we want 
it opened. 

[Mrs. T. unties the bundle carefully, and displays a pair of pants — note drops on the 
floor — throws them contemptuously from her — calls.] 

Mrs. T. [Calling.] Betty — Bet-ty! 

Betty. [Entering.] Marm ? 

Mrs. T. [Pointing to the bundle.] Who brought that bundle here ? 

Betty. Don't know, mum — 'twas left on the door-stone. 

[Stooping down and picking up a note which had dropped.] Here be a letter, 

mum. [Exit.] 

Mrs. T. [Reading — others peeping over her shoulders.] "Having jUSt 

returned from a long absence I beg leave to present you with 
a testimonial of my regard. The accompanying are intended 
for wear. A Friend." 

I know you, sir — I know you, Ned Madcap — and you 
shall suffer for this. I '11 run right over and tell Miss Vinegar. 

[Exit.] 

Miss S. Who ever heard of sich imperdence ? The gallers 

is too good for him ! [Door-bell rings.] 

Betty. [Entering.] Miss Snivel is Wanted. [MissS. — exit.] 
Mrs. A. I guess it's that oderous Miggins — I shouldn't 
wonder a bit — queer goings on in this village ! 

Miss S. [Re;=niering. ] Nahum Noddle — scape-gallows ! — says 



AND DRAMATIC. 



283 



Ned Madcap wants to know if I was aware that Tom Stacy- 
had traded horses — and hoped I 's well. His aunt shall hear 
of this — that she shall ! 

[Bells ring — cries of fire — fire.] 

Betty. [Entering hurriedly.] Somebody's house is afire some- 
where, I guess. 

Mrs. B. I must go — where 's my shawl ? 

[Exeunt Betty and Mrs. B.l 

Mrs. A. I shouldn't wonder if it's Coggses' grocery — 1 
seed 'em fetching some lard lamps in there this mornin 

Miss S. Oh ! — oh — oh — they 're exploded, for sartiii I — 
several persons must be killed and others wounded ! — quick 

hurry! [Exeunt.] 

Scene III. A drawing-room in the house of Ned^s father. 
[Aunt Mary knitting by a table with books.] 

Ned. But, my dear aunt, what else could I do in the prem- 
ises ? 

Aunt M. Why, Edward, you should have been the last 
one to disturb the harmony of any family. Mrs. Trimmins 
tells me that 

Ned. Oh, bang Mrs. Trimmins ! — she 'd say the sun was a 
cabbage, if she could gain a proselyte by it. I 've no faith in 
these old women who forget that the mouth was ever made 
to be shut. Then, there 's Miss Snivel 

Aunt M. Oh, she 's a dear young lady ! 

Ned. Young lady! [Holding up both hands, i Fatos preserve us ! 
What ! that unwedded stick ? Why, she can't remember her 
last beau — 't was such a long time ago. No, no — there 's 
no use talking to me — I vowed revenge upon the whole bevy 
long ago. Didn't I throw 'em into an agreeable noise and 
confusion this afternoon ? What a time, and nobody to it ! 
Ha ! ha ! ha ! [Mimicing Miss Snivel.] Several persons must be 
killed and others wounded ! — ha ! ha ! ha ! [Laughing loudiy.i 

[Scene closes.] 



CHURCH CRITICS. 

EASTERN MAIL. 



Scene. Twist, Squint, Ungracious, Lofty, Goodwin, Twaddle, 
and others, standing around the church door, after meeting. 

Twist. Well, Mr. Squint, what do you think of the new 
preacher? 



284 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Squint. Why, Mr. Twist, I can't say that he pleased me ; 
that is, he wan't what might have been expected. Indeed, I 
don't know but I might say I was disappointed a leetle ! 

Twist. That 's jest what I should have said myself, Mr. 
Squint, but you took the words out of my mouth. But, Mr. 
Lofty, what is your opinion ? — will he do ? 

Lofty. Will he do ? Why, I must say that I have my 
doubts. He wore, as you all must have been pained to ob- 
serve, a black cravat, and even wiped his face in the pulpit 
with a red bandanna. All out of taste ! decidedly unclerical ! 
To suit me, a minister may wear black gloves, but white is 
the only suitable color for his neckcloth and pocket-handker- 
chief. Besides, I should have been better pleased if his hair 
had been a shade lighter, and his eyes a little more animated. 

Goodwin. Rather particular, friend Lofty; but, neighbor 
Ungracious, how were you suited ? 

Ungracious. Not so well as I might have been. He 
preached up too much piety and religion for me. For one, I 
don't want to be twitted of my sins every Sunday. 

Goodwin, [in a low tone.] It is a guilty conscience that 
speaks ! 

Ungracious. What 's that you observe ? 

Goodwin. I was going to say that it would take more than 
an angel to suit everybody. 

Lofty. But, Deacon, there is no disguising the fact, I think, 
that his sermons lack depth. They are so plain and simple, 
that anybody may understand every word of them. 

Goodwin. All the better, in my opinion, for being easily 
understood. 

Lofty. It is well, I know, to have plain preaching ; but then 
it must not be so plain as not to have some learning in it. 

Twist. I agree with you there, 'zactly ; I 've heard preachers, 
in my day, and not a few, neither. The fact is, now we are 
going to have a railroad, our village must begin to look up. 
His discourses had no large words in them. He did not as 
much as mention Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, nor any of the 
old patriarchs. Now, the Rev. Mr. Novelty, up river, preaches 
crack discourses, such as take his hearers, with their diction- 
aries, a whole week to find out his meaning. 

Twaddle. I 'm of your opinion. You have hit it, neighbor, 
'zactly. Besides, I guess you will be a little surprised when 
I tell you that he has gone and got engaged to a young miss 
out of town. 

Goodwin. He has, indeed ! Why, wife picked our Jerusha 
for him. 



AND DRAMATIC. 285 

Twaddle. But he seems to have picked for himself, and 
slighted all our daughters. 

Goodwin. Well, well, — he 's no go here, now, take my 
word for it. 

Squint. Come, let us go and express our minds to the 
parish committee. [All go off.] 



THE VILLAGE SQUIRE. 

ANONYMOUS. 

Timothy Wiggins, Squire. I Mr. Edgerstone, an attorney. 
Jonathan, his nephew. | Mr. Millwood, a student. 

Officer. 

Scene I. Squireh Office. 

Squire. [Entering with a letter. Opens, looks at the bottom, and reads.] 

" Your dear brother, Pelecompeser Jozadak Wiggins." 
Ay, ay, from brother Daka. " State of Varmount, two miles 
to the westward of any place. May 8th, 1849. Dear brother. 
I take my pen in hand to inform you that I am well, and 
hope these few lines will find you the [looking . close] sam." 
What does he mean ? — I am uncle Tim. Sam lives in the 
Jarseys. But let us see what he says. " As I have more 
children than I know what to do with, and hearing that you 
are pretty considerable of an old bachelor, I have made bold 
to come to the determination to send you our Jonathan. He 
is a keen chap for a young one, and will beat any on 'em, 
only give him a chance. My wife sends love, and a blessing 
for Jonathan, who will be with you soon arter this letter. 
Barsheba, and Hetty, and Dinah, and Mabel, and Philis, and 
Eachel, and Dorcas, and Tabathy, and Medad, and Zephaniah, 
and Shishak, and Tobit, and Shaphat, send love to uncle 
Tim. The rest of the boys are out grubbing. Your affec- 
tionate brother, Pelecompeser Jozadak Wiggins." Children ! 
I think so ! An uncommon lot of them. Well, I am glad 
Daka has not quite forgotten me. A son to bring up is bet- 
ter than nothing. 

[Enter Edgerstone.] 

Edgerstone. Good-morning, Squire. Any news from the 
city ? 

Sq. Not a bit, Mr. Eag Eaglestone. [Edgerstone correct- 
ing him.] Ah ! I have it then, — Mr. Edgerstone. A line from 
Vermont. Anything stirring down below ? 

Edger, Nothing, to my knowledge, of much consequence. 



286 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

I am told they are beginniug to talk about the election of 
congressman. 

Sq. Indeed, I have been thinking of that myself. Who 
will be nominated for our district ? 

Edger. No one can conjecture as yet. 

Sq. Who is talked of? 

Edger. Several have been named, but I do not like any 
of them. 

Sq. Which of them would you prefer ? 

Edger. I cannot vote for either, and I have come over 
this morning to see if the squire would not stand, if he 
should be nominated. 

Sq. What did you say, Mr. Gagglestone ? [Edgerstone correcting.] 

What ! / be nominated ? I go to Congress ? Who says it ? 
who believes it ? It can't be so ! 

Edger. Yes, it can, squire, rest assured of that. Come, 
what say, — will my friend consent to stand ? 

Sq. [Walking as in thought.] Why yes, I think I would. I have 
been wanting to sa7^ve my country, and do something in a 
poZztical way. It would tickle me considurble to go to Con- 
gress ; but how can it be brought about ? 

Edger. It is, indeed, a point of some little difficulty ; but 
vrather mysteriously] you know, squire, in these times, anybody 
can get an office whose pockets are well lined with bank- 
notes and is not too stingy to produce them. 

Sq. Well, I think you about right, Mr. Guzzledown. 
[Edgerstone correcting.] Well, I declare, I Can never get the hang 
of your name. How much do you think it will cost ? I 
would not value a hundred or two, if I could only make out 
something in the poZztical way. 

Edger. Say two hundred dollars, to begin with. I will 
go, and I hope on the strength of that to get you nominated 
in the county caucus. That accomplished, I will go down to 
the district convention and get your nomination carried there. 
This will take a good sum more, — say, all together, one thou- 
sand dollars. 

Sq. A thousand dollars ! That is a good sum, as you 
say. Can't it be done for less ? iWaiking about.] A thousand 
dollars ; I want to sarve my country, but if it is going to cost 
so much, I must think about it again. 

Edger. It may not amount to that. Suppose we begin 
with two hundred, and see how it tells. 

Sq. We will try that ; I shall anyhow be getting into the 
poZztical way. 

Edger. I will see to your business directly. [Taking a paper 



AND DRAMATIC. 287 

from his pocket, and approaching the squire in a half obsequious tone.] Squiie 

Wig-gins, will you do me the favor to endorse this bond ? 

Sq. [Takes the bond.] Five thousand dollars, to be paid a week 
hence. I — I — let me see. I want to accommodate if 1 
can. Can you give me security ? 

Edge?'. Yes, a sound claim for twice the sum on the Ben- 
tham estate. 

Sq. Well, make out your writings ; I will sign the bond. 

One favor of you, Mr. Anglehorn. [Edgerstone correcting.] My 

nephew, Jonathan, is coming from Vermont to-day. I wish 
you would sound the boy, and give him a bright idea or two, 
if you find he has got any scrumption. 

Edger. I will do so. The writings will be prepared 

shortly. [Exit Edgerstone.] 

Sq. [Alone.] How this will sound : — Squire Wiggins, a 
member of Congress ! Let us see. How will my speeches 
be reported ? Why, " Mr. Wiggins rose and addressed the 
chair in the following eloquent and powerful speech." I'll 
beat Clay and Calhoun, Webster and Benton, and the whole 
of 'em. The first of the Wigginses that ever sat upon the 
floor of Congress, — I will hand my name down to the latest 
posterity. But what have I to do with posterity, crusty, 
fussing old bachelor that I am ? Ay, true enough. There is 
my niece Julia, and Jonathan, that ought to be here, if he is 
coming. They shall be my posterity. They shall have my 
property and fame too, if Jonathan is worthy of either. It is 
only yesterday that Julia returned from the city. How it 
will sound there, — Julia Wiggins' uncle has gone to Congress ! 

[Enter Jonathan.] 

Jonathan. How de du, uncle Tim ? 

Sq. What, Jonathan ! — this you ? How a man knows his 
own relations, if he never did see them ! How are you, my 
boy? 

Jona. Pretty considerable stirring, I guess. 

Sq. I have just got a letter about you. Do you think you 
would like to live with me, Jonathan ? 

Jona. I should be nationed curious feller not to, I guess. 
Dad telled me, if you took a notion to me, I should be dressed 
as I am now, all the while, and, instead of grubbing up 
stumps and heckeling among hummocks, and going to Ash- 
dod to mill, I should be a gentleman, and go to college. 

Sq. What made him think of college ? 

Jonu. Cause I have always been a mighty cute lad at lam- 
ing. The first winter I went to school, I larnt to read as fast 



288 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

as I could talk ; and the next, I beat the master in rithmetic, 
all holler. 

Sq. That was not so slow, neither, Jonathan. Mr. Me- 
gerbone will be here to-night, and he will see if you are fit 
for anything. Don't despair. You may be president yet. 
How that will sound, — President Wiggins ! President Wig- 
gins ! 

Jona. Ha ! ha ! that it will, uncle. [Exeunt.] 

Scene II. A lawyer^s office. 

Eager . [Seated at a table covered with papers and law books, and writing. 1 

I can't leave a flaw in it, after all, that the old squire can't 
discover. Well, it must be so. Better as thus, than go to 
jail next week. 

[Enter Millwood.] 

Millwood. How are you, Edgerstone? Always at business, 
ha? 

Edger. A little engaged this morning, but I am now at 
your service. But what is the matter with you, Millwood ? 
your laughter-loving eyes look sober. 

Mill. A mere trifle. 

Edger. Got into some of the scrapes they learn you at 
college, and want me to get you out ? 

Mill. A scrape, I allow, but I d(i not know that we learn it 
at college. I just saw you come from esquire Wiggins', did 
I not? 

Edger. I have been there, this morning. 

Mill. Did you see Julia ? 

Edger. Now I have it, — in love ! That is a scrape ; ha ! 
ha! 

Mill. Don't laugh at me. 

Edger. They say Julia has grown up a very beautiful 
girl? 

Mill. Oh, she is divine ! 

Edger. Very likely. 

Mill. Could you have seen her last evening, as she was 
handed from the carriage, you would not now speak in sar- 
casm. The thick coming emotions of home had crimsoned 
her cheek — health and grace were in every motion — joy 
shone in every feature. I caught one glimpse as I passed ; 
and, oh ! an angel could not have been more enchanting. 

Edger. I imagine that you would make that angel yours. 

Mill. Yes, and here is where I am in difficulty. The old 
squire has forbidden my seeing her. 

Edger. In such a case, I know of no statute or common 



AND DRAMATIC. 289 

law principle in point. The law of love is altogether a sin- 
gular code, that Blackstone has not mentioned. 

Mill. I did not come to ask advice, but some assistance in 
the way of sending to her. Here are some verses I have 
been writing. Can you get them consigned to her hands ? 

Edger. Indeed, Millwood, I can't promise. Let me think ; 
perhaps I may. Jonathan will be here shortly; I can hand 
them to him. [Taking the verses.] Aliem ! Shakspeare. In true 
love style, — on the envelope two hearts pierced with two darts. 
Love is cruel. I '11 deliver them. [Exit Millwood.] If Jonathan is 
anything of a Yankee we will have this love-lorn Millwood in 
a scrape, in good earnest. [Enter Jonathan.] Jonathan Wiggins, I 
suppose, come to be examined. Well, Jonathan, I think you 
come from Vermont, where the stones are so thick that they 
sow their wheat with a rifle. 

Jona. Yes, and where they have to grind the sheep's noses 
every month. 

Edger. Well, my boy, can you skin a flint ? 

Jona. That will depend on who is a-going to have the hide. 

Edger. Eather keen, Jonathan. Did you ever tree an 
earthquake ? 

Jona. No, but I have ketched three young ones asleep, 
before now. 

Edger. Can you ride a streak of lightning, bareback ? 

Jona. I can, after the bridle is on. 

Edger. What will you take to go to New York about the 
quickest ? 

Jona. The magnetic telegraph, to be sure. 

Edger. Did you ever see the sun at midnight ? 

Jona. Yes, I saw a dozen suns one night, when old Lucas' 
mill-pond got afire. 

Edger. How big are the hail-stones in your country ? 

Jona. I heard dad say he seed one once as big — oh, as 
big as a piece of chalk. 

Edger. Well, my boy, you will do something yet. We 
must go to the squire's now. Here is a paper you may hand 
to Julia. 

Jona. [Taking the Terses.] The dickens ! what 's that ? It looks 
like two legs of bacon in agony. [Exeunt.] 

Scene III. Squire's office. 
[Squire reading newspaper, with spectacles on, &c. Presently enter Edgerstone.] 

Edger. What says the Gazette ? 

Sq. Not much. Nothing unfavorable any way. We shall 

do something yet, Mr. Grizzleton. [Edgerstone correcting.] 

25 



290 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Edger. Ay, that will we. I have the writings prepared, 

squire. [Hands them. While the Squh-e is reading, Edgerstone examines very 
close the desk.] 

Sq. Sign here, I suppose. [Signs.] 

Edger. Now, if you will advance me that small sum you 
mentioned. 

Sq. [Opening his desk and taking out money.] Oh, hoW mUch it COStS 

to serve one's country ! Well, I will get glory enough to pay 
up before the session is through. 

Edger. [Taking the money.] That is right. 

Sq. I will take a receipt, if you please. 

Edger. Would it not be best to dispense with that ? — you 
know it might be shown to your disadvantage, if it was dis- 
covered. Besides, you know it is illegal to expend money in 
buying votes ; and so a receipt is good for nothing. 

Sq. Yes, yes. Look to it that you are honest. 

Edger. You will see shortly. [Exeunt.] 

Scene IV. A private room. 
[Enter Jonathan and Millwood,] 

Jona. Be you the gentleman who sent some verses to 
cousin July ? 

Mill. Yes, and what of it ? Has she consented to an in- 
terview ? 

Jona. She sends them back, and says she can't understand 
them all. 

Mill. What does she not understand ? 

Jona. Take them and read along ; I'll tell you when you 
come to it. 

Mill. [Reads.] 

Oh, who is so cruel, so heedless, so gay. 
To quench in despair the soul's only ray. 
Whatever the raptures or woes that enthrall. 
And o'er it to shed lone midnight's dark pall 1 

Your image in beauty o'er my fancy is stealing, 
Each thought is a gush of emotion — 

Jona. She wants to know how a thought can be a gush of 
emotion. 

Mill. Oh, poetic license allows as much as that. [Reads.] 
Could I kneel where that beauty its form is revealing, 
I auspicate there the soul's deep devotion. 
Jona. She wants to know what you mean by " auspicating 
the soul's devotion." She says there is no such word as aus- 
picate, and, if there were, the line would be all nonsense. 
MUl. Well, what poet is there now-a-days that does not 



AND DRAMATIC. 



291 



have a line of nonsense, now and then ? Horace says that 
Homer sometimes nods. [Reads on.] 

As the moon's witching beams of the sun were withdrawn, 
Were parted forever from man's longing view, 

So my being is quenched in darkness forlorn, 
If parted, dear Julia, from you. 

Then grant me one smile from those lips so divine, 

One love look that soul cannot belie ; 
Or, if fate deals too hardly with sorrows like mine. 

Grant me one moment of sadness — a sigh. 

Jona. She says she shan't hinder you from sighing, if you 
Hke it. 

Mill. How she misunderstands me ! I wanted her to sigh. 
Has she consented to an interview ? 

Jona. On one condition. 

Mill. Oh ! what is that ? Pray what is it ? 

Jona. You know uncle Tim has said you should not see 
her ; and, if you meet her, you must be blindfolded. 

Mill. Oh, glorious ! My poetry has softened her heart a 
little, after all. When and where shall I meet the sweet 
creature ? 

Jona. She says, this afternoon, by the old crab-apple tree 
in the garden. 

Mill. Blindfolded. Yes, I consent to anything, if I can 
be near her, and know that she is thinking of my unworthy 
self. I will certainly be there. [Exeunt.] 

Scene V. Room in the Squire's house. 
[Enter Squire and Jonallian.] 

Sq. Well, Jonathan, have you got most wonted here ? 

Jona. Why, pretty considerable, I guess. There are so 
many funny chaps about I have n't been homesick a bit. 

Sq. What do you mean ? 

Jona. There is Billy Millwood ; he acts like a crazy ter- 
rapin with a coal of fire on his back. 

Sq. What is he crazy about ? 

Jo7ia. Don't you think he is in love with our July ? 

Sq. You don't believe he cares anything about the girl, do 
you ? I was informed that he was a hair-brained youth, capa- 
ble of nothing but gambling and dissipation. 

Jona. And who told you so ? 

Sq. Lawyer Gizzlestone. 

Jona. And he is another cute chap. I tell you what, uncle 
Tim, if I do say it, it won't answer to trust too much to what 
he says. 



292 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Sq. Why, Jonathan ? [Much alarmed.] What do you mean by 
that ? 

Jo7ia. Oh, not much. 

Sq. Speak out, boy. 

Jona, Milhvood is no more dissipated than our old lame 
turkey. 

Sq. How do you know that ? 

Jona. I had pretty considerable of a chat with him, yester- 
day, about college matters, and sich. He said he staid alone 
from one week's end to another. Now, no one would do so 
that was dissipated. 

Sq. Then Weaslestone has deceived me. 

Jona. And I guess this is not the only thing he has played 
the Indian about, neither. I heard him laughing about some 
old fool that thought he was going to Congress. 

Sq. Who told you about that ? 

Jona. Nobody ; but I guessed he meant you. 

Sq. You beat all nature, Jonathan, for guessing ! I could 
swear you were a Yankee, if I did not know that you come 
from Vermont. It may be he has wheedled me, after all. 
Here, Jonathan, tell Ben to harness old Dobbin. [Exit Jonathan.] 
r 11 go and talk with parson Tousey. He is something of a 
man in the political way, [putting on coat, &c.] and knows all 
about this Gaggledown, too. Why did I not think of him 
before ? I '11 not see my two hundred again, I 'm afraid. 

[Exit.] 

Scene VI. In a garden. 

[Enter Edgerstone, leading Millwood, blindfolded.] 

Mill. Have we got near to the crab-apple tree ? 
Edger. It is just here. No need to touch it. There, she 
is coming. 

[Enter Jonathan, mufHed in a long cloalt.] 

Mill. Oh, that I should live to see such an hour as this ! 
Here I am, Julia. [Kneeling on one knee.] May I press your hand ? 
Jona. [Disguising his voice.] Yes, if it will do you any good. 

Mill. [Taking hold of Jonathan's hand, and throwing it from him.] That is 
not Julia's hand ! [Tearing off the bandage. The others laughing heartily.] 

Well, this is a joke in earnest ! There, I might have known 
that Julia would have never consented to such a meeting as 
this! [Enter Squire ] Oh, distraction ! here is the squire himself. 
Squire Wiggins, I trust you will pardon this intrusion. In- 
deed, I have been deceived, or I should never have been 
here. 

Sq. It seems, Mr. Millwood, that we have both been 



AND DRAMATIC. 293 

deceived, and by a villain who has the effrontery to call him- 
self a gentleman. Mr. Edgelesshone, or by what other name 
you are called, I have found you out at last ! 

Edger. As you have no further need of my services, I shall 

withdraw. [Offers to go.] 

Sq. [Stepping before him.] Not in such haste, if you please. An 
officer is approaching, to take you to jail on charge of breaking 
open my desk and removing sundry bonds and papers. You 
were going to get me into Congress. You will find a situation 
for yourself, at any rate, for the next two years, in the state 
penitentiary. Mr. Millwood, we have misunderstood one 
another. Upon inquiry, I find I can respect you as a man and 
a scholar. I do not hereafter expressly prohibit your seeing 

Julia. [Enter officer, and arrests Edgerstone — Jonathan goes behind Edgerstone 

as he is led off.] Now he has got it ! 

[Exeunt.] 



GUSTAYUS YASA. 

H. BROOKS. 

Scene. Mountains of Dalecarlia. 

[Enter Gustavus as a peasant; Sivard and Dalecarlians following.] 

Gustavus. Ye men of Sweden, wherefore are ye come ? 
See ye not, yonder, how the locusts swarm, 
To drink the fountains of your honor up. 
And leave your hills a desert ? — Wretched men ! 
Why came ye forth ? Is this a time for sport ? 
Or are ye met with song and jovial feast, 
To welcome your new guests, your Danish visitants ? 
To stretch your supple necks beneath their feet, 
And fawning lick the dust ? — Go, go, my countrymen, 
Each to your several mansions ! — trim them out, 
Cull all the tedious earnings of your toil, 
To purchase bondage ! — O, Swedes ! Swedes ! 
Heavens ! are ye men, and will ye suffer this ? 
There was a time, my friends, — a glorious time ! — 
When, had a single man of your forefathers 
Upon the frontier met a host in arms. 
His courage scarce had turned ; himself had stood, 
Alone had stood, the bulwark of his country ! 
Come, come ye on, then ! Here I take my stand ! 
Here, on the brink, the very verge of liberty ; 
Although contention rise upon the clouds, 
25=^ 



294 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Mix heaven with earth, and roll the ruin onward, 
Here will I fix, and breast me to the shock, 
Till I or Denmark fall ! . 

Sivard. And who art thou. 
That thus wouldst swallow all the glory up 
That should redeem the times ? Behold this breast ! 
The sword has tilled it ; and the stripes of slaves 
Shall ne'er trace honor here ; shall never blot 

The fair inscription. Never shall the cords 

Of Danish insolence bind down these arms, 

That bore my royal master from the field. [gi'isf • — 

Cnis. Ha ! Say you, brother ? Were you there — oh, 
Where liberty and Stenon fell together ? 

Siv. Yes, I w^as there ! — A bloody field it was, 
Where conquest gasped, and wanted breath to tell 
Its o'er-toiled triumph. There our bleeding king. 
There Stenon on this bosom made his bed. 
And, rolling back his dying eyes upon me, 
Soldier, he cried, if e'er it be thy lot 
To see my gallant cousin, great Gustavus, 
Tell him — for once, that I have fought like him. 

And would like him have 

Conquered ! 

Gus. Oh, Danes ! Danes ! 
You shall weep blood for this ! Shall they not, brother ? 
Yes, we will deal our might with thrifty vengeance, 
A life for every blow, and, when we fall, 
There shall be weight in 't ; like the tottering towers, 
That draw contiguous ruin. 

Siv. Brave, brave man ! 

My soul admires thee. By my father's spirit, 

I would not barter such a death as this 

For immortality ! Nor we alone — 

Here be the trusty gleanings of that field 

Where last we fought for freedom ; here 's rich poverty, 

Though wrapped in rags, — my fifty brave companions ; 

Who through the force of fifteen thousand foes 

Bore off their king, and saved his great remains. 

Gus. Why, captain. 
We could but die alone, — with these we '11 conquer. 

My fellow laborers too What say ye, friends ? 

Shall we not strike for 't ? 

Siv. Death ! Victory or death ! 

All. No bonds ! no bonds ! 

Am. Spoke like yourselves. — Ye men of Dalecarlia, 



AND DRAMATIC. 295 

Brave men and bold ! whom every future age 

Shall mark for wondrous deeds, achievements won 

From honor's dangerous summit, warriors all ! 

Say, might ye choose a chief — 

Speak, name the man, 

Who then should meet your wish ! 

Siv. Forbear the theme ! 
Why wouldst thou seek to sink us with the weight 
Of grievous recollection ? Oh, Gustavus ! 
Could the dead wake, thou wert the man. 

Gus. Didst thou know Gustavus ? [worth 

Siv. Know him ! Oh, Heaven ! what else, who else was 
The knowledge of a soldier ? That great day, 
What Christiern, in his third attempt on Sweden, 
Had summed his powers, and weighed the scale of fight, 
On the bold brink, the veiy push of conquest, 
Gustavus rushed, and bore the battle down ! 
In his full sway of prowess, like Leviathan 
That scoops his foaming progress on the main, 
And drives the shoals along ; — forward I sprung, 
All emulous, and laboring to attend him ; 
Fear fled before, behind him rout grew loud, 
And distant wonder gazed ; — at length he turned. 
And having eyed me with a wondrous look 
Of sweetness mixed with glory — grace inestimable ! 
He plucked this bracelet from his conquering arm, 
And bound it here ! But from that blessed day 
I never saw him more — yet still to this 
I bow, as to the relics of my saint : 
Each morn I drop a tear on every bead, 
Count all the glories of Gustavus o'er. 
And think I stiU behold him ! 

Gus. Eightly thought ! 
For so thou dost, my soldier, 
Behold your general, 

Gustavus ! come once more to lead you on 
To laureled victory, to fame, to freedom ! 

Siv. Strike me, ye powers ! It is illusion all ! 

It cannot it is, it is ! [Fails and embraces his knees.] 

Gtcs. Oh, speechless eloquence ! 
Rise to my arms, my friend ! 

Siv. Friend ! say you, friend ? 
O, my heart's lord ! my conqueror ! my — 

Gus. Approach, my fellow soldier ; your Gustavus 
Claims no precedence here. 



296 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Haste, brave men I 

Collect your friends, to join us on the instant : 
Summon our brethren to their share of conquest, 
And let loud echo, from her circling hills, 
Sound freedom, till the undulation shake 

The bounds of utmost Sweden ! rExeunt Dalecarlians, shouting.] 



BARON VON KLINGENBERG/ 

J, C. PORTEK. 



Mrs. Blake Bently. 
Miss Matilda Bently. 
Miss Turretville. 
Miss Lybrand. 
Mr. Symmington. 
Mr. Beverly, an acquaintance 
of Snaith. 



Capt. Bromly Cheston. 
Mrs. Albina Cheston. 
Miss Myrtilla Cheston. 
Aunt Quimby, a plain speaker. 
Mr. Smith, a nobleman incog-. 
Baron Von Klingenberg, an im- 
postor. 

[Enter Capt. Cheston, Mrs. Cheston, and Miss Cheston, and take chairs.] 

Miss Cheston, How fortunate that Aunt Quimby left us 
last week ! This last visit has been so long, that I think she 
will scarcely favor us with another for two or three weeks, at 
least. I hope she has not heard of our party to-night. 

Capt. Cheston. There is no danger of that, Myrtilla. Aunt 
cannot possibly have heard of it ; and besides, she told me she 
was going to set out for Baltimore on Wednesday, to visit 
Billy Fairfield's sister, Mrs. Bagnell. Says she, "I shall 
remain in Baltimore all the fall, for when the Bagnells once 
have me with them, I don't believe they will let me come 
away this side of winter." 

Mrs. Cheston. I sincerely hope they may not. But pray, 
is it not about time for our company to arrive ? 

Capt. C. They will soon be here, no doubt. I trust we 
shall spend the time pleasantly with our new acquaintances. 

Miss C. One thing, — Aunt Quimby will not be here, to 
rattle her tongue as usual in everybody's ears. 

Capt. C. Well, I confess aunt is rather sociable. 

Miss C. She is. indeed, most intolerably sociable ! 

Mrs. C. Oh, Bromly ! There comes our most mat-apropos 
of aunts ! — I thought she was a hundred miles off! 

Miss C. What shall we do with her ? — on this evening, too, 
of all evenings ! 

Capt. C. We must endeavor, as usual, to make the best of 

* Adapted from the " Ladies' Book." 



AND DRAMATIC. 297 

her. But where did she pick up that singular looking man 
she seems to be pulling along with her ? 

[Enter Aunt Quimby and her companion, whom she introduces as Mr. Smith.] 
Mr. Smith. [Shaking hands awkwardly with Capt, Cheston.] I SUppose 

I am unexpected — I fear I am trespassing 

Aunt Quimby. O nonsense, now, Mr. Smith ! where 's the 
sense of being so shamedfaced, and apologies for what can't 
be helped ? I dare say my nephew and niece wonder quite 
as much at seeing me here ; but are you sure my baggage 
is all on the barrow ? Just step back, Mr. Smith, and see 
if my big. blue band-box is safe, and the little one too. [Exit 
Mr. Smith.] Men all seem to owe a spite at bandboxes. 

Capt. C. Tell me who this gentleman is, aunt, and how 
happens it he comes with you ? 

Mrs. C. I thought, aunt, you were to start yesterday for 
Baltimore. 

Aunt Q. O! yes — but things have worked the queerest I 
ever saw. 

Miss C. Have you invited Mr. Smith here to-night ? 

Capt. C. You are always meeting with strange adventures, 
aunt, — did the steamboat blow up ? Your perseverance must 
have met something extraordinary — pray give us the whole 
history. 

Aunt Q. Why, the short and long of it is this : I was to 
have started for Baltimore yesterday morning, bright and early, 
with Mr. and Mrs. Neverwait ; but the shoemaker disappointed 
me in my overshoes, and a great many other things turned up, 
so that I could not possibly go ; and the Neverwaits went 
without me. 

Mrs. C. But who told you about the party, aunt ? 

A7(,nt Q. Don't be in such a wonderment, Albina ! you '11 
know all soon. As I was saying, I was bent upon going 
somehow this morning. So Billy Fairfield went down to the 
wharf, and found this Mr. Smith, who was a man that took no 
airs, and did n't set up for great things. 

Miss C. And invited him to our party ? 

Aunt Q. No, no ! We had n't heard of the time you was 
to have to-night. As I was saying, Billy got him to take 
charge of me to Baltimore 

Mrs. C. And why did n't you go, aunt ? 

Aunt Q. Dear me ! Albina, that 's what I was trying to 
tell. You see, Mr. Smith was some bashful, and a good deal 
flustrated, and took me into the wrong boat ; and the boats 
being all mixed up together, we didn't find out our mistake 
until we got half way up the river, instead of being half way 



298 DIALOGUES FAJMILIAR 

down. And then I heard the ladies talking of a party, which 
they said was to he at Capt. Cheston's to-night. I pricked up 
my ears, and found it was even so ; and I told them that Capt. 
Bromly Cheston was a near relation of mine, for his wife was 
own daughter of Mrs. Marsden, whose first husband was my 
own sister Nelly's son — and all about your marrying Capt. 
Cheston. 

Capt. C. And what did the company say to all this ? 

Aunt Q. Why, I don't exactly remember ; but they must 
have said something, for I know that those nearest stopped 
their own talk when I began. 

Mrs. C. But about this Mr. Smith ? 

Aunt Q. Oh ! after a while I went and told him what a 
lucky mistake we had made, as we were to be at a party with- 
out intending it ; and he made a sort of homing and hawing 
about intruding himself without an invitation, as he called it ; 
but I told him the party was to be at my nephew and niece's, 
who are always crazy to see me, and to have me with them, 
and I 'd engage to pass him through, as they would be just as 
glad to see any of my acquaintances. 

Miss C. But does your son-in-law know nothing more of 
him than merely seeing him at the wharf ? 

Aunt Q. Oh ! yes, we had him at tea once, (you need not 
mention it though.) It was quite in a plain way ; but he 
seemed very satisfied ; and though there were doughnuts and 
cucumbers, and all such things, on the table, he did n't eat any- 
thing but bread and butter, and not much of that. 

Miss C. But, is he respectable ? 

Au?it Q. But, if the truth must be told, Mr. Smith is an 
Englishman. 

Miss C. An Englishman ! 

Aunt Q. Yes, but the poor man can't help that, you know; 
and I 'm sure I never should have guessed it, for he neither 
looks English nor talks English. 

Capt. C. Are you sure he is a man of good character ? 

Aunt Q. Why, Bromly ! you are as fidgety as an old maid ! 
Billy went to the English consul and described his dress and 
looks, and the consul knew who he meant, and said he would 
warrant him to be perfectly honest and respectable. 

[Reenter Mr. Smith.] 

Mr. S. Mr. Cheston, will you be so kind as to direct me to 
the nearest inn, that I may remain till a boat passes down the 
river ? 

Aunt Q. Why, Mr. Smith, where 's the sense of being so 



AND DRAMATIC. 299 

backward ? I suppose you think you 're not welcome ; but 1 
will answer for you, as well as for myself 

Capt. C. Mr. Smith, I hope you '11 not leave us ; we should 
be very happy to have you remain and pass the evening 
with us. 

Mr. S. But — but — is there not to be a party of young 
folks here to-night ? 

Aunt Q. Oh ! there, Mr. Smith, I do believe you are bash- 
ful, and afraid of getting into company where there are girls. 

Capt. C. We are, indeed, expecting a few friends in this 
evening, but we think you will find them every way agree- 
able. 

Mr. S. I guess, then, I will remain. 

[Goes and lakes a seat by himself] 

Aunt Q. I heard some of the ladies in the boat say that 
there was to be a lion here to-night. 

Capt. C. Well, aunt, did that frighten you ? 

Aunt Q. Frighten me ? Good gracious ! It made me open 
my eyes, and put me all in a quiver. I told them he should 
not be turned loose, if he were ever so tame. Is it indeed so, 
Albina ? 

Mrs. C. Why, aunt, don't you know that a lion means a 
great man ? 

Aunt Q. A lion means a great man ! Well, I say it 's a 
real right down shame to speak of Christian people as if they 
were wild beasts ; but who is this great man ? 

Mrs. C. O ! he 's a foreigner — Baron Von Klingenberg. 

Aunt Q. Baron Von Klingenberg I My sake ! — a baron 
— a real outlandish baron ! 

Mrs. C. O aunt I he 's a person of very high tone. 

Aunt Q. High tone ! I suppose he '11 drown the voice of 
everybody else in the room. I 'm sure I want some chance to 
talk myself, — a baron ! I suppose, then, all the young ladies 
have fallen in love with him. Well they may, for all of me, 
if I am a widow ! Dear me ! now they are all coming ; how 
glad I am that there are chairs enough ! 

[Enter Symmington', Miss Lybrand, and Miss Turretville.] 

Capt. C. [After all are seated.] You never visited this place be- 
fore, I believe, Mr. Symmington — how have you enjoyed 
yourself since your arrival ? 

Symmington. Oh! very well indeed — a pleasant place. 
I understand that the baron is to be here to-night. 

Capt. C. He is, and will probably come with Mrs. Bently 
and her daughter. 



300 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Mrs. C. He must fancy greatly Mrs. Bently's carriage ; it 
seems he always rides in it. 

Miss Turretville. Perhaps the carriage, and its inmates too. 

Miss Lybrand. Have you ever had an introduction to him, 
Miss Turretville ? 

Miss T. Yes, at Mrs. De Mingles' party. 

Miss C. Did I not see him take your fan and fan himself 
with it ? 

Miss T. I think he did so — how very easy and familiar 
he always appears ! 

Aunt Q. O, if there is not Mr. Smith sitting away back 
hehind us all ! Do come here, Mr. Smith, with the rest of us ; 
— come — you will find a much pleasanter seat beside me. 
[Mr. Smith keeps his seat.] Myrtilla, come here ; [speaking low] do take 
some account of that poor forlorn man that 's sitting back 
there. He 's so very backward, and thinks himself such a mere 
nobody, — there now, that 's a good girl ; go and spirit him 
up a little. 

Miss C. I hardly know how to talk to an Englishman. 

Aunt Q. Why, can't you ask him if our sun is not a 
great deal brighter than his, and if he ever in his life saw so 
wide a river, and if he ever in his life saw such big trees ? 

Miss C. [Going to Mr. Snnith.] Mr. Smith, don't you think our 
sun is a great deal brighter than yours ? did you ever in your 
life see so wide a river, and did you ever in your life see such 
big trees ? 

Mr. S. I never have. 

Capt. C. Miss Lybrand, have you heard the baron speak 
of his splendid castle ? 

Miss L. yes ! how gorgeous it must be ! 

Sy7n. The baron is very intimate with your family and 
Mrs. Bently's, I learn. 

Miss L. Yes, he has favored us with many visits, as well 
as the rest of the fashionable circles in our part of the city. 

Aunt Q. Miss Lybrand, — is that your name ? — was your 
grandfather's name Moses ? 

Miss L. It was. 

Aunt Q. Oh ! then you must be grand-daughter of old 
Moses Lybrand, who kept a livery stable up in Eace-street. 
Is your father's name Aaron ? 

Miss L. [Rather tartly.] No, madam. My father's name is 
Richard. 

Aunt Q. Richard ! — he must have been one of the second 
wife's children. Oh ! I remember seeing him when a little 
boy ; he had a curly head. Yes ! yes ! I recollect the family 



AND DRAMATIC. 



301 



very well ! they used to go to our meeting, and sit up gallery. 
Richard was a smart looking boy, — they used to call him 
Tippy Dick. But what has become of your uncle Aaron ? 

Miss L. [Looking displeased.] I don't Imow, — I never heard of 
him. 

Aunt Q. But was not your grandfather's name Moses ? 

Miss L. There might have been other Moses Lybrands. 

[Changes her seat.] 

Aunt Q. Was he not a short, pock-marked man, who 
walked lame, with something of a cast in his right eye, — 
but I won't be positive, it might be in his left ? 

Miss L. I 'm sure, papa's father was no such looking man. 

[Enter Baron Von Klingenberg, Mrs. Blake Bently, and her daughter Matilda.] 

Capt. C. [After all are seated.] You havo uot been loug in this 
country, I believe, baron ? 

Baron Von Klingenberg. No, my dear captain, but I have 
never regretted coming. 

Sym. I am glad you enjoy your visit; do you think it 
pleasanter residing in America than in Europe ? 

Baron Von K. I can hardly say which delights me most. 

Mrs. Blake Bently. A change of scenes, baron, and form- 
ing new acquaintances, I should think might be very agree- 
able to you? 

Baron Von K. It is, madam, — the truth is, one gets sur- 
feited with courts, and kings, and princes. By the way, this 
assembly reminds me of the annual fetes I give to my serfs 
in the park that surrounds my castle, at the Cataract of the 
Rhine. 

Miss B. I suppose you take great pleasure in giving these 
great entertainments to your serfs ? 

Baron Von K. Certainly. [Applying Mrs. Bently's essence-bottle to 

his nose.] As I was Saying, when I give these fetes to my 
serfs, I regale them with Westphalia hams, from my own 
hunting-grounds, and hock, from my own vineyards. 

A2mt Q. Dear me ! Ham and hock ! 

Miss T. Baron, I suppose you have visited the Hartz 
Mountains ? 

Baron Von K. My castle stands on one of them. 

Miss T. Charming I then you have seen the Broken. 

Baron Von K. It is directly in front of my ramparts. 

Miss T. How dehghtful ! Are there still brigands in the 
Black Forest ? 

Baron Von K. Troops of them — the Black Forest is just 
back of my own woods. 
26 



302 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

Miss C. The situation of your castle must be unique — in 
the midst of the Hartz Mountains, at the Falls of the Rhine, 
with the Broken in front, with the Black Forest behind. 

Mrs. C. O, you must doat on the place ! Did you live 
there always ? 

Baron Von K. No ; only in the hunting season. I am 
equally at home in all the capitals of the continent ; perhaps 
chiefly at my native place, Vienna, where my friend, the 
emperor, is never so happy as when I am with him. I 
recollect, at the last court ball, the emperor was teazing me to 
dance with his cousin, the Archduchess of Hesse Hoblingen ; 
but her highness dances as if she had a cannon-ball chained 
to each foot — and so I got off by flatly telling him it was 
rather excruciating to whirl about with persons in heavy 
royal robes. 

Miss T. Is it possible ? Did you dare to talk so to an 
emperor ? 

Mrs. C. Of course, before the next morning, you were 
loaded with chains and immured in a dungeon. 

Baron Von K. Not at all. My old crony, the emperor, 
knows his man; so he laughed, and slapped me on the 
shoulder, and I took his arm, and we sauntered off to the 
other end of the grand saloon. I remember, that evening, I 
broke my quizzing-glass, and had to borrow the Princess of 
Saxe Blingenberg's. 

Miss C. Was it not very elegant, set round with dia- 
monds ? 

Baron Von K. Quite likely it was ; but I never look at 
diamonds, — one gets tired of them. I often joke vdth my 
friend, Prince Esterhazy, about his diamond coat — its glitter 
really incommodes my eyes, when he happens to be near me, 
as he does quite often. Whenever he walks, you may track 
him by the gems that fall from it. 

Mrs. B. And I suppose you can hear him far off by the 
continued tinkling as they fall ? 

Baron Von K. Well, I must say you have a capital idea 
of royal cuts and scenes. 

Aunt Q. I believe, madam, your name is Bently ? 

Mrs. B. I am Mrs Blake Bently. 

AuTit Q. Mrs Blake Bently ! Oh ! I remember your hus- 
band very well. He was a son of old Tommy Bently, up 
Second-street, that used to keep the sign of "Adam and Eve." 
Old Tommy's wife was a Blake — that was the way your 
husband came by his name. Her father was an upholsterer, 
and she worked at the trade before she was married. She 



AND DRAMATIC. 



303 



made two bolsters and three pillows for me, though I 'm not 
quite sure it was not three bolsters and two pillows. She had 
a brother that was a painter and a glazier, too. I remember, 
we always used to send for him to mend our broken windows. 
And you live up Chestnut-street, don't you, among the fash- 
ionables ? 

Mrs. B. My residence is up Ckestnut-street 

Aunt Q. And your mother's name was Koss ? 

Mrs. B. Her maiden name was Ross. 

Aunt Q. I thought so — I remember your father very 
well. He was a son of old Tommy Atwood, who kept an 
ironmonger's shop down Second-street. Your grandfather 
was a very obliging old man. I recollect once he had the 
kitchen tongs mended for me, and when I put him in mind I 
had bought them at his store, he never charged me a cent. 
Strange I never got acquainted with you before ! 

Mrs. B. [With disdain.] Got acquainted with me before ! [Turn- 
ing to the baron.] Baron, I suppose the royal saloons are fitted up 
with the utmost splendor, are they not ? [Exit Captain Bromiy C] 

Baron Von K. Some of them. I remember, one day, I 
was dining with the King of Prussia ; there were some fine 
peaches on the table, and the king said to me, " Klingenberg, 
my fine fellow, let 's try which of us can first break that large 
looking-glass by shooting a peach-stone at it." 

Aunt Q. Dear me — what a king ! — and now I look at 
you again, sir, — there ! just now, with your face turned to the 
light, — there 's something in your looks that puts me in mind 
of Jacob Stimble, our Dutch young man, that used to live with 
us. Mr. Quimby bought him out of a redemptioner's ship. 
He was to serve us three years ; but before the time was up 
he ran away. Maybe he was a relation of yours, as you 
both came from Germany. 

Baron Von K. A relation of mine ! 

Aunt Q. There, now, — there 's Jake Stimble to the life ! 
He had just that way of stretching up his eyes, and drawing 
down his mouth, when he did not know what to say. 

[The baron contracts his brow. Aunt Quimby looks inquisitively.] Fix your 

face as you will, you are as much like him as you can look. 
I can see Jake Stimble now, with the market basket, or 
scrubbing the pavement. 

[Enter Captain Bromiy C] 

Capt. C. [Addressing the company.] Ladies and gentlemen, it 
will give me pleasure to wait on you to the refreshment 

hall. [Exeunt all but Aunt Quimby and Mr. Smith.] 



304 DIALOGUES FABIILIAE 

Aunt Q. Why, Mr. Smith ! have the girls' given you the 
slip ? They surely meant for you to follow them. 

MLT. S. [Rising suddenly, going a step or two, and hesitating.] I dare not, 

without an invitation. 

Aunt Q. Pho ! Pho ! You are too humble. Pluck up a 
little spirits, and run after the girls. 

Mr. S. I — I believe I cannot take such a liberty. 

Aunt Q. Then I '11 call Captain Cheston back, to invite you. 

f Going.] 

Mr. S. [Seizing her by the arm.] No, uo, — I had rather not in- 
trude further upon his kindness. 

Aunt Q. I declare, you are the most shamefacedest man I 
ever saw. Here you 've been, all the evening, looking as if 
you had n't a word to throw at a dog. Sit down, Mr. Smith, 
and talk to me. There's a seat. [He is seated.] Mr. Smith, 
don't you think barons have voices much like other people ? 
Did you ever hear any of them talk, when in England ? 

Mr. S. Once or twice, I believe. 

Aunt Q. On business, I suppose ? Do noblemen go to the 
shops and buy their own things themselves ? Mr. Smith, 
please to tell me what line you are in ? 

M7\ S. [Hanging his head and blushing — after a pause.] The tin line. 

Aunt Q. Well, never mind, — though, to be sure, I did n't 
expect you were a tinner, — perhaps you do a little in the 
japan way ? 

Mr. S. No, I deal in nothing but plain tin. 

Aunt Q. Well, — if you think of opening a shop in bur 
place, I 'm pretty sure Billy Fairfield will give you his custom ; 
and I '11 try to get Mrs. Pattypan and Mrs. Kettleworth to buy 
all of their tins of you. 

Mr. S. You are very kind. Is the . tin business good in 
this country ? 

Aunt Q. Well, there ! — you have asked me one question 
to-night, have n't you ? Do try, Mr. Smith, to keep up your 
courage, when the girls come back, wont you ? Albina will 
be laughing at me for having such a bashful man with me, 
if you don't talk more. But, what did you ask ? 

Mr. S. I asked if the tin business was good in this place ? 

Aunt Q. Oh ! as to that, I hardly know what to say. Was 
you going to be a tin pedler ? 

Mr. S. A what ? 

Aunt Q. A tin pedler. Did n't you ever hear of that trade 
before, and a tinman too ? Well, between us, it is not quite 
so respectable as some. However, one thing I 'm sure of, 
you '11 never be a bit above your business. I '11 do my best for 



AND DRAMATIC. 305 

you, and when you get a little more acquainted with our 
people, you '11 hold up your head and look quite pertly. 

[Enter Captain Cheston, Symmingtonj Albina, Myrlilla, Mrs. Bently, Miss Lybrand, 

and Miss Turretviiie.] Come, Mr. Smith, let US go out into the 
other room — maybe we shall see the baron again. 

[Exit Aunt Quimby, followed by Mr. Smith.] 

Capt. C. How did you like the appearance of the baron, 
friend Symmington? 

Sy?n. Oh ! very much ! he must be very distinguished in 
Europe. 

Mrs. B. To be so familiar with kings, and princes, and all 
such great characters ! 

Capt. C. Did you ever learn anything of his military 
fame, Mr. Symmington ? 

Sy7n. Nothing, in particular. I heard him speak of having 
on his Hussar uniform, on a certain occasion. 

Mrs. C. I should like to see him in such a dress. 

Miss C. Oh ! he don't look to me like a bloody warrior. 

Miss L. So I think. He neither looks nor talks like a 
cruel man at all. 

Miss C. I delight to hear him talk ! 

Miss L. O, I do ! about castles, and diamonds, and fetes ! 

Miss T. How I wish there were castles with ramparts, and 
cataracts, and banditti, in this country ! 

Mrs. C. Hark ! What 's that noise ? 

[Enter Aunt Quimby, all out of breath.] 

Aunt Q. Oh ! mercy ! — if Mr. Smith has n't been collar- 
ing the baron ! [All rise and press round her.] 

Mrs. C. and Mrs. B. [Together.] The baron collaring Mr. 
Smith, you mean ! 

Aunt Q. No, no, — I mean as I say ! Who 'd think 't was 
in Mr. Smith to do such a thing ? Oh ! he shook him, and 
kicked him ! — and, only think, all that to a baron ! 

Capt. C. And to my guest too ! 

Mrs. B. Oh, dear ! Is the baron wounded — is he bleed- 
ing ? 

Miss L. Are they fighting now ? — do go and help him ! 

Mrs. C. Go, quick! 0, he'll be killed — the baron '11 be 
killed ! 

Sym. There will be a duel out of this, certainly. 

Mrs. B. A duel ! why yes, and more too, — the King of 
Germany will make war upon the United States, before 
to-morrow morning I 
26'^ 



306 



DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 



[Enter Smith, and Miss Bently, with her handkerchief at her face, who goes sohbing 
to her mother's side.] 

Mrs. C. [Indignantly calling out, as Smith makes his appearance.] Impu- 
dent scoundrel ! 

Sym. Base assassin ! 

Mrs. B. Ungrateful murderer ! 

Aunt Q. You ugly man ! I guess I shall help you sell your 
tins ! 

Capt. C. You ruffian ! What 's the meaning of this out- 
rage, and in the presence of a lady, too ? 

Mr. S. The lady must excuse me for forgetting myself so 
far as to chastise, on the spot, a contemptible villain. 

Mrs. B. You are the contemptible villain, yourself! 

Capt. C. Explain yourself, sir ! 

Mr. S. Believe me, friends, I know this Baron Von Klin- 
genberg to be an impostor and a swindler. He has visited 
several countries in Europe, feigning to be an American 
gentleman of great fortune, and has always turned out a 
thievish rascal. Just now, I detected him picking pockets, 
and cutting the jewels from the ladies' dresses. 

Mrs. B. Don't believe him ! — Mr. Smith, indeed ! who 's 
to take his word ? who knows who Mr. Smith is ? 

Mr. Beverly. [Speaking as he enters.] I do, — I had the pleasure 
of knowing him intimately, during my last tour in Europe. 

Aunt Q. Maybe you bought your tins of him ? 

Mr. B. Ladies and gentlemen, shall I have the honor of 

introducing Lord Huntingford. [The company gradually fall back.] The 

only tin he deals in is that produced by his extensive mines 
in Cornwall. 

Mr. S. Perhaps, my friends, the epithets, rascal and 
scoundrel, will apply as well to barons as to lords. 

Capt. C. Lord Huntingford, I humbly ask your pardon for 
my rashness. Sir, — if you can overlook such injurious lan- 
guage 

Mrs. B. My lord, — I hope you will excuse us all ; we were 
excited. 

Mr. S. Far be it from me to blame any of you. I ex- 
pected such treatment. 

Capt. C. But, my lord, — can it be possible that the baron 
is an impostor ? 

Mr. S. It is truly so. 

Mrs. B. And a thief, too ? 

Mr. S. Yes, a thief 

Mrs. C. And you saw him steal ? 

Mr. S. All I have told you is true. 



AND DRAMATIC. 307 

Sym. What a humbug ! 

Aunt Q. Humbug ! My gracious ! I should say Lord Smith 
humbugged me the most ! — making me believe he was a tin 
pedler. Dear me ! to think I should be so familiar with a 
lord, and a real one, too ! I suppose I must not speak to you, 
now, Mr. Smith, for I don't know how to begin calling you 
my lord. 

Mr. S. Call me Mr. Smith, if you choose; under that 
name I have had opportunity of gaining much knowledge 
of this unique and interesting country — knowledge which I 
could not have obtained in my real character. This last con- 
sideration, I hope, will be sufficient excuse for the little decep- 
tion I have practised. 

Sym. But, where 's the baron ? has he sneaked off? 

Miss B. He has ! he has, — and has taken my beautiful 
diamond ring ! 

Mrs. B. Now I think of it, he did not give back my gold 
essence-bottle, with an emerald stopper ! 

Miss T. Now I remember, he did not return to me the 
beautiful fan he took from my hand at Mrs. De Mingles' ! 

Sym. And I doubt if he returned her diamond opera-glass 
to the Princess of Saxe Blingenberg. 

Aunt Q. The Princess of Saxe Fiddlestick ! Do you sup- 
pose he really ever had anything to do with such folks? 
Between ourselves, I thought it was all fudge, the whole time 
he was trying to make us believe he was hand in glove with 
women that had crowns on their heads, and men with dia- 
mond coats, and kings that shot peach-stones ! I believe he 
is Jacob Stimble. The more he talked, the more he looked 
like him, — and when Lord Smith was giving him such a 
drubbing, he looked, for all the world, as he did when Mr. 
Quimby used to be plying the switch to him. 



JULIUS C^SAR. 

W. SHAKSPE/^RE. 

Scene. The Forum and Citizens. 
[Enter Brutus, and goes into the Rostrum.] 

Citizens. The noble Brutus is ascended : silence ! 
Brutus. Be patient till the last. 

Romans, countrymen, and lovers ! hear me for my cause ; 
and be silent, that you may hear : believe me for mine honor ; 



308 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR 

and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe : cen- 
sure me in your wisdom ; and awake your senses, that you 
may be the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, 
any dear friend" of Ceesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to 
Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand, 
why Brutus rose against Csesar, this is my answer — Not 
that I loved C^sar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had 
you rather Ccesar w^ere living and die all slaves, than that 
Csesar w^ere dead to live all freemen ? As Caesar loved me, I 
weep for him ; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he w^as 
valiant, I honor him ; but as he was ambitious, I slew him : 
there are tears for his love ; joy for his fortune ; honor for 
his valor ; and death for his ambition. Who is here so base, 
that would be a bondman ? If any, speak ; for him have I 
offended. Who is here so rude, that would not be a Roman ? 
If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so 
vile, that will not love his country ? If any, speak ; for him 
have I offended. I pause for a reply. 

Cit. None, Brutus, none ! [Several speaking at once.] 

Bru. Then none have I offended. I have done no more 
to Caesar, than you should do to Brutus. The question of 
his death is enrolled in the Capitol : his glory not extenuated, 
wherein he was worthy ; nor his offences enforced, for which 
he suffered death. 

[Enter Antony and others.] 

Here comes Mark Antony ; who, though he had no hand 
in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in 
the Commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this 
I depart ; that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, 
I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my 
country to need my death. 

Cit. Live, Brutus, live ! live ! 

Bru. Good countrymen, let me depart alone, 
And, for my sake, stay here with Antony. [Exit.] 

1 Cit. Stay, ho ! and let us hear Mark Antony. 

3 Cit. Let him go up into the public chair ; 
We '11 hear him : noble Antony, go up. 

Antony. Friends, Romans, countr^Tiien, lend me your ears ; 
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
The evil that men do lives after them ; 
The good is oft interred with their bones ; 
So let it be with Caesar ! The noble Brutus 
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious : 
If it were so, it was a grievous fault ; 
And grievously hath Caesar answered it. 



AND DRAMATIC. 309 

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, 

(For Brutus is an honorable man ; 

So are they all, all honorable men,) 

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me ; 

But Brutus says he was ambitious; 

And Brutus is an honorable man. 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill ; 

Did this in Csesar seem ambitious ? 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept ; 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff; 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And Brutus is an honorable man. 

You all did see that on the Lupercal 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown. 

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And sure he is an honorable man. 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, 

But here I am to speak what I do know. 

You all did love him once, not without cause ; 

What cause withholds you then to mourn for him ? 

1 Cit. Methinks there is much reason in his saying. 

2 Cit. There is not a nobler man in Rome than Antony. 

3 Cit. Now mark him ; he begins again to speak. 
Ant. But yesterday the word of Caesar might 

Have stood against the world : now lies he there, 
And none so poor to do him reverence. 

masters ! if I were disposed to stir 
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 

1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, 
Who, you all know, are honorable men : 

I will not do them wrong ; I rather choose 

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you. 

Than I will wrong such honorable men. 

But here 's a parchment, with the seal of Caesar, — 

I found it in his closet, — 't is his will : 

Let but the commons hear this testament, 

(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,) 

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, 

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood. 

4 Cit. We '11 hear the will : read it, Mark Antony. 
Cit. The will ! the will ! we will hear Caesar's will. 
Ant. Ha 76 patience, gentle friends, I must not read it; 



310 DIALOGUES FAMILIAR AND DRAMATIC. 

It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you. 
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men ; 
And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar, 
It will inflame you, it will make you mad ; 
'T is good you know not that you are his heirs ; 
For if you should, O, what would come of it ! 

4 Cit. Kead the will ; we will hear it, Antony ! 
You shall read us the will ; Caesar's will ! 

Cit. Stand back ! room ! bear back ! 

Ant. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 
You all do know this mantle : I remember 
The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 
'T was on a summer's evening, in his tent ; 
That day he overcame the Nervii : — 
Look ! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through : 
See, what a rent the envious Casca made : 
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed ; 
And, as he plucked his cursed steel away, 
Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it ! 
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved 
If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no ; 
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel : 
Judge, O you gods ! how dearly Caesar loved him ! 
This was the m.ost unkindest cut of all : 
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, 
Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms, 
Quite vanquished him ; then burst his mighty heart ; 
And in his mantle muffling up his face, 
Even at the base of Pompey's statue. 
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell. 
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, 
Whilst bloody Treason flourished over us. 
O, now you weep ; and, I perceive, you feel 
The dint of pity : these are gracious drops. 
Kind souls, what weep you, when you but behold 
Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here, 
Here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors. 

1 Cit. O piteous spectacle ! 

2 Cit. O traitors ! villains ! 

3 Cit. We will be revenged ! — revenge ! 
About ! — seek ! — burn ! — fire ! — 

Slay ! — let not a traitor live ! [Exeunt,] 



OCCASIONAL 

ADDRESSES AND EXERCISES. 



A SALUTATORY. 



COMM. SCRIPT. 



Parents and Friends : — We rejoice to meet you here on 
this occasion. We feel that you are concerned in the improve- 
ment we may have made of the golden hours which we have 
passed in this cherished place ; it truly gladdens our hearts 
in beholding the interest your kindly presence manifests; 
We feel assured you will not judge of our performances by 
any very elevated standard, since, from those as young as 
ourselves, perfection, or any near approach to it, cannot be 
reasonably expected. If you but discover those germs of 
culture and scientific attainments which promise future 
respectability and excellence as scholars or speakers, you will 
find all we could claim. Not to what we are, bat to that 
which we are striving to become, would we ask your attention. 
We greet you, then, not as critics, but as friends, — friends, 
who, generously overlooking each deficiency necessarily at- 
tending youthful inexperience, will hail every indication of 
success, as the bright harbinger of future usefulness. 

But, whatever may be the measure of our merit, we feel 
to one belongs the full meed of praise. 

Kind teacher, — it is proper that we acknowledge, with 
thankfulness, your unceasing toils in our behalf. We doubt 
not, that you, sir, have already that rich reward which the 
consciousness of duties well performed always imparts, — but 
to that we would fain add our sincere gratitude and high 
respect. 

Schoolmates, — hand in hand we have been privileged to 
cull mental flowers, more beautiful than those that garnish the 
teeming earth. If any of you have found that beneath the 
beautiful rose of unfolding truth the thorn has lurked — or, 
in other words, if the more you have learned, the more deeply 
you have been pierced with the conviction that the endless 
river of knowledge murmurs forth its melodious invitations 



312 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES 

to drink oi inexhaustible waters — feel solaced by the reflection, 
that though you can never learn all things, yet the very 
boundlessness of truth enables every noble spirit to partake 
freely of its pure element. And the bright examples of the 
wise and good show clearly how may be yours all the 
noblest objects of a laudable ambition. 

" Therefore, press on ! and reach the goal, 

And gain the prize, and wear the crown ; 
Faint not ! for to the steadfast soul 

Come wealth, and honor, and renown. 
To thine own self be true, and keep 

Thy mind from sloth, thy heart from soil ; 
Press on ! and thou shalt surely reap 

A heavenly harvest for thy toil ! " 



A SALUTATORY. 

F. CROSBY. 

A CHEERY smile ever finds some " wee green neuk, some 
wee sly neuk," wherein to nestle in the hearts of the young. 
Age may learn to cloak the sweetest emotions of the soul — 
hypocrisy may mildew with its night-shade glare each sound 
of praise — the world may teach us to forget all sunny looks 
which lighten the load of life — this, all this, may be our 
future lot, — but may it be a future far distant. Long may 
it be ere we shall learn the art of ingratitude, foreign to all 
ingenuous natures — never may we stifle a thank-offering 
when our hearts would yield it ! 

For your gladsome presence with us this evening, in be- 
half of my comrades, I thank you. Commencing, as we 
do, under such favorable auspices, how can our success but 
be enhanced ? — how can we but strive to gain the meed of 
your applause ? 

Over our short-comings and failures we beg that the mantle 
of charity may drop. We are no veterans, born and bred 
to thread the mazes of the drama ; no children of the stage 
are we, accustomed to call-boy and prompter ; a failure with 
us brings no loss of bread ; — nought of all this are we. 

We offer ourselves as mere novices in the art histrionic — 
we ask no higher niche than this in your memory. From us 
you will expect the delineation of the school-boy, the demeanor 
of those all unacquainted with the mysteries of the boards. That 
we provoke no laughter, that we cull no approbation, attribute 
all to this, — this rank alone do we claim. 



AND EXERCISES. 313 

Accept, then, our evening's tribute as an index of our 
willingness to endeavor, though we fail of success. Happy 
shall we be, if, perchance, we equal a fair anticipation. 

Closing, as we do, this evening, our present term, permit 
me for my companions to thank you for the kindness shown 
our attempts to please you, during the eleven weeks which 
now slumber with the past. May coming time bring no 
regret to your memories, when wandering over these fields, 
now numbered with the silent. May you ever retain the 
happiness of the true patron — and when we shall have lain 
this evening aside with its brothers of the by-gone, may no 
saddened tear drop over its resting-place, — but may we, one 
and all, patrons, teachers, and taught, sun ourselves in the 
recollection of a season happily spent. 



AN INTRODUCTORY. 

COMM. SCRIPT. 

Respected Friends, — It is a source of pleasure to us, this 
evening, to behold you at our exhibition, because we are led 
to infer from your presence that our undertaking has your 
approval. 

You are doubtless aware that we have given our attention 
for a short time past to speaking and recitation ; and we hope 
to show, by this evening's exercises, that our eiForts at im- 
provement have not been wholly in vain. Perfect specimens 
are not to be expected of any so young as ourselves ; yet we 
know not but there may be among us some who may rise, 
by means of a persevering diligence, to that degree of intel- 
lectual greatness and power that shall enable them to hold 
listening multitudes in rapture, and sway the councils of the 
nation by their eloquence. We know -not what we <zre, — 
much less what we shall he. Therefore we have determined to 
labor and to hope, feeling fully assured that the greater our 
attainments of learning and virtue in youth, the better we 
shall be prepared to act honorable and useful parts on the 
great stage of active and responsible life. 

And it is ours to hope, that this evening's recreations, 
honored by the attendance of our relations and friends, may 
not be lost upon us, but prove an inducement for us ever to 
strive for the approbation of the wise and good. 
27 



314 



OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES 



A VALEDICTORY. 

W. L. P. BOAKDMAN. 

The veil of the past is soon to be drawn over all the 
records of the present term. Its joys, its sorrows, its moments 
well spent and its moments wasted, all that it has granted to 
us of intellectual wealth or of moral growth, are soon to 
become subjects of positive history. We are about to bid 
adieu to our teacher, to each other, and many of us, doubt- 
less, a final farewell to this school. Farewell! how does the 
sound of that, alas ! too oft repeated word, thrill every soul 
with poignant regrets ! To unbind the tendrils entwined 
around the heart by intimate companionship, and to take the 
hand of cherished friends, perhaps, for the last time this side 
of the grave is, indeed, sad and melancholy, and would be 
hardly supportable were not true friendship eternal. 

It is proper, kind friends, that we gratefully acknowledge 
the encouragement your attendance has given to us, at this 
closing scene. Your cheerful countenances, and your marked 
attention, tell us that our efforts to please have not been 
wholly ineffectual. Benefiting by the many lessons of wis- 
dom that have been taught us, we confidently hope, by acting 
well our parts on the stage of active life, to be honored, not only 
with your continued approbation, but to receive that which is 
still better and nobler, even the approval of God and con- 
science. 

To you, the much loved Principal of this school, allow me, 
in behalf of my schoolm^ates, to offer the unanimous testi- 
mony of affection and respect. The untiring zeal and assi- 
duity with which you have labored to guide and aid us in our 
feeble, toilsome march up the rugged hill of science, have 
richly merited, and do receive, our heartfelt thanks. It will 
ever be the earnest wish of your pupils that all your labors 
may be crowned with rich success, and that in the end you 
may receive the faithful teacher's reward in heaven. 

Schoolmates, you are now to part, never again to meet 
under the same circumstances. Some of you leave this place 
of learning to-day, as students for the last time, while others 
will return at the beginning of another term, to resume the 
onward march in the flowery paths of literature. A few 
years, at most, will be sufficient to work for you great 
changes. But with almost all of you it is entirely optional 
as to what station you shall occupy in life. Would you have 
the wreath that honor and virtue entwine encircle your brow ? 
Then, in all your varied intercourse with the world, be so 



AND EXERCISES. 315 

guided and governed by the knowledge you have been privi- 
leged here to acquire, as ever to display in your characters 
and lives an honest, virtuous, persevering integrity. 

And now, at the moment of separation, permit me, in 
behalf of friends, teacher, and students, to speak to each, 
for each, the parting word, hoping that we all may be allowed 
to meet each other again, at last, in that better world, where 
partings are known no more. Farewell ! 



A CLOSING ADDRESS AT AN ACADEMY. 



In view of circumstances peculiar to the closing of a term, 
I trust the audience will now bear with me while I may per- 
sonally address those who, as teachers and students, are most 
deeply interested in the work of this institution. 

And first, to you, our beloved Principal, whose labors have 
so abundantly blessed this band of happy youth, whose watch- 
ful supervision and constant concern for our welfare have ever 
attested the purity and disinterestedness of your motives, — 
to you, in behalf of my fellow students, would I render ex- 
pressions of sincere and heartfelt gratitude. Well do we 
know the trials and discouragements which have attended 
you, and we should do you injustice not to confess our ina- 
bility to reward your zeal. Your reward is higher and more 
noble than we, or the world, can give. Heaven and an 
approving conscience do alone bear to you a worthy recom- 
pense. Time may hurry us on, until the veil of the past shall 
interpose obscurity between memory and the scenes of youth, 
but God forbid that we may ever forget you, or cease to bind 
to our hearts your cherished name, your pure example and 
wise instructions. May the blessing of Heaven ever rest 
upon you. Accept, we pray, these expressions of regard, as 
the sincere and grateful tribute of many overflowing hearts. 

And to you,"^ whose labors have lightened the cares of our 
worthy Principal, and heightened the joys of our intercourse 
with one another, we extend the affectionate congratulations 
of a friendship which we trust will continue to glow within 
our hearts while life and the recollections of the past remain. 

And, also, to you,t whose task has been to cheer and en- 
liven by the tuneful art, as well as to assist in the various 

* The Assistant. t The Teacher of Music. 



316 



OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES 



duties of the term, do we proffer our heartfelt testimonials of 
sincere regard. May your skilful hand continue to produce 
sweet melody, and your voice lend the soul-stirring enchant- 
ment of song, until you shall be called to join that angelic 
choir, whose fingers " sweep the golden wires " of celestial 
harps in the glory of Paradise. 

Fellow Students, — what can I say to you ? Our past 
intercourse speaks volumes to my heart. Age may silver my 
now youthful locks ; time may waft its changes by ; yet 
never shall I forget this affectionate group, and their happy 
union for the noble purpose of mutual improvement. As 
brothers and as sisters would I speak to you. Well do you 
know your responsibilities. I need urge nothing upon your 
attention in regard to the various duties which the world will 
expect you to perform as you go forth into its busy scenes. 
Your actions have already spoken, and announced the spirit 
of a noble determination. Go on, persevering in hope, and a 
crown of honor awaits you. 

And now the hour of separation has come, what thoughts 
crowd in succession through our minds ? We think of the 
term that has passed away ; of the enjoyments it has brought 
us ; of the social festivals it yielded ; and all seems delight- 
ful to dwell upon. But, alas ! the pang of separation dis- 
solves the enchanting spell, and we look forth into the bosom 
of the dark, uncertain future ! 

For the last time we have assembled. Never shall we all 
again unite upon earth, an unbroken band, to enjoy the bliss 
of a union like that which is now being dissolved. We go 
forth to our scattered homes, many of us never again to visit 
this lovely spot ; while some, perhaps, may slumber in the 
silence of the grave before the return of another occasion like 
this. But though we may no more meet together on earth, 
may we be permitted again to meet in heaven, and there 
enjoy together union, and peace, and love forever. 

My duty is now done. Friends, teachers, and students, 
may God bless you all. Farewell ! 



A CLOSING ADDRESS FOR EXAMINATION DAY, 

J. C. PORTER, 

Indulgent Friends, you now have heard us through, 
In kindness we can bid you all adieu. 
The closing hour of school has come at last ; 
How quickly have the moments flitted past ! 



AND EXERCISES. 

It seems, I know, a dream of sportive plays. 
Yet, parents dear, well spent have been our days. 

Teacher, our grateful thanks to you we give, — 
May Heaven's blessings cheer you while you live. 
Go on ; assist the human soul to rise, 
For brighter joys await you in the skies. 

Gay, happy band, our feelings who can tell, 
As now we part, and, parting, say farewell ? 
In future years, when life's gay scenes have fled. 
And we perhaps to distant lands have sped, 
How will remembrance these bright days recall. 
And wisdom's lessons treasured in this hall ! 

Teacher and friends, and pleasant classmates too, 
We kindly bid you, one and all, adieu ! 



317 



AN EPILOGUE. 

CD, STUART. 



Dear Friends and Parents ! 'neath whose cheering smile 
We 've toiled, to please and keep you here a while, 
Our task is o'er, and unto me the part 
Has been assigned to speak, with swelling heart, 
To you who all have watched and wished us well, 
The few brief words, of friendship and farewell ! 
O ! gently judge us for all deeds amiss : 
Forget our faults, and but remember this — 
That all our acts, however ill expressed. 
Were well intended, and we hope are blessed. 
One meed alone it was our wish to gain — 
Your kind applause — and have we strove in vain ? 
Methinks, while gazing on each smiling face, 
The hoped for verdict I can plainly trace, 
And hear in whispers from your bosoms start 
The warm response, a tribute from each heart ! 
If so, the summit of our hope is won, — 
What more than please has mortal ever done ? 
And for such meed, oh, friends ! our thanks accept ; 
Your smiles shall all for after times be kept. 
And rise to cheer us on some future day, 
When o'er the past our memory's feet shall stray ; 
27:^ 



318 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES 

And we, recalling from its treasures dear, 
Will bless the friends who saw us gather here. 
Oh friends and parents ! may your fortunes be 
Henceforth unclouded, and from sorrow free ; 
And each year, in succession, as it flies, 
Thus see us meet with rapture in our eyes ; 
Thus see us strive to act our parts as well, 
And of your pleasure in sweet accents tell ! 
The past ! our paths a thousand ways pursue — 
Some hopeful star is beaming on each view ! 
O may those paths to peace and pleasure tend, 
And at the goal of life immortal end ! 
May gentle flowers bloom lightly where you tread, 
And joy's pure halo circle o'er each head ! 
Life's thorns be hidden in the distant sand, 
And not a footstep tread that desert land, 
But all glide onward till life's toil is past. 
And meet together by one shrine at last, 
As brothers meet upon a blissful shore, 
When every cloud that darkens life is o'er, 
Amid the songs from many hearts that swell, 
To say no more the bitter word — "Farewell ! " 



A CLOSING ADDRESS AT A REPEATED EXHIBITION. 

J. G. ADAMS. 

Indulgent Friends ! once more we close 

A pleasant exhibition — 
This evening doubly pleasant made, 

Because a repetition. 

It tells us that our efforts here 

Have not proved unavailing ; 
It tells us that in greater deeds 

We must not think of failing. 

It tells us that the truth well said, — 

Clear, earnest, and unbroken, — 
To those who seek for sense, not sound, 

Will bear to be re-spoken. 

We '11 think of this ! A thought sublime 

Comes in the contemplation 
Of truth here uttered — who can tell 

Its work, its consummation ? 



AND EXERCISES. 

Oh ! truth repeated ! 'T is a song 
Through highest heaven ringing ; 

A song the daily sun, the moon, 
And all the stars, are singing ! 

Heard in each breeze that sweeps the land. 
Or skims the murmuring ocean — 

In bird-note of the morn or eve, 
Sounds of a true devotion ! 

Seen in each thing of life and joy 
Our eyes are here beholding ! — 

Felt in that soul whose powers shall be 
Eternally unfolding ! 

Beloved friends — good-night ! — we pray 

No evil may distress you — 
That, in all gloom of life to come, 

This evening's light may bless you. 



319 



ON PRESENTATION OF A SILVER PITCHER, 



AT SALEM. 



A handsome silver pitcher was presented to Mr. Cumston,* late 
Principal of the North Phillips School, by the pupils, on Wednes- 
day afternoon, Nov. 22d, 1.848. Master John L. Hunt performed 
the ceremony of presentation, in the use of the subjoined speech : 

Ladies and Gentlemen, and Mr. Cumston, our late most 

respected and beloved teacher : — 

The pupils of the Phillips School, my brother scholars, 
have requested me, in their behalf, to present to you this token 
of their lasting friendship, esteem and love. 

You have been to them, sir, not only the patient, able, and 
successful teacher, but the kind friend, the cheering guide ; and 
they will recollect you, not only while they have minds to 
educate, but hearts to feel. 

Their unfeigned regret at parting with you, you must have 
seen and felt ; indeed, you shared the same feelings with us 
all. You were one of us, and among us ; and such a loss we 
doubly feel. It is a vacancy which will not, alas ! be filled. 

We were desirous, sir, after you had gone from among us, 
to manifest, in some enduring form, the feelings which had 
connected us so pleasantly together; to again see you among 

* Now a teacher in the English High School, Boston. 



320 



OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES 



US, one of us, and present to you, personally, in a pleasant 
form, that token of their feelings. 

They chose this pitcher ; on it is inscribed our wishes. 
May you pour from it, unto your latest life, the waters of 
sweet contentment, kind remembrance, and pure happiness. 
May it remain by you as the evidence of former days of use- 
fulness and duty, not unremembered by us all, and gladden 
your eyes, and cheer your heart, with the perpetual good 
wishes of those young hearts who now beg you to accept it. 
It is their simple but heartfelt gift. Accept it from our inner- 
most hearts. 

Our assistants, my fellow-scholars, each and all of us, unite 
in wishing you, now and ever, the best of earthly and heav- 
enly wishes ; long may you live for usefulness, honor and 
happiness, and as we may never meet you again in our old 
relations, may we yet all meet in that grander hall of instruc- 
tion, where the great Teacher can purify our souls with the 
light of all truth, and lead us in his ways of pleasantness and 
his paths of peace. 

Mr. Cumston replied very appropriately, and the exercises closed 
with singing. 



ON PRESENTATION OF A VASE AND FLOWERS, 

AT WEST NEWTOxV. 

At the third triennial convention of West Newton State Normal 
School, held July 26, 1848, after the " Salutation" from the Prin- 
cipal, Miss Sarah A. Clark, a member of the school, stepped for- 
ward, and made a presentation to him of a silver vase filled with 
flowers, in the following words : 

Mr. Peirce : — The present members of the Normal School 
would offer you, in behalf of yourself and lady, this vase. 
We do not offer it for its beauty or value, but simply because 
we love you, and wish to express our love to you. Take it, 
then, as a memorial of our deep and abiding sympathy ; as 
a testimonial of our gratitude for your unceasing efforts to 
benefit us. And, above all, take it as a pledge that we will 
endeavor to profit by your instructions, that when you shall 
appear at the great gathering of souls, your crown may be 
wreathed with Normal blossoms, bright and pure as those 
now before you ! 

Mr. Peirce rose to receive it, and replied : 

I accept the valued gift, my dear pupils, with deep-felt 



AND EXERCISES. 



321 



gratitude and pleasure. My heart is too full now to utter 
more. You who know me will understand my feelings, even 
though I take it and say no more. 



ON PRESENTATION OF A GOLD PENCIL, 



AT DANVERS. 



Mr. E. Valentine having- taken his leave of District School 
No. 11, in Danvers, Mass., the scholars showed their appreciation 
of his services by presenting him with a beautiful chair and gold 
pencil. Master Walter Fairfield, on making the presentation of the 
pencil, addressed the teacher as follows ; 

Mr. Valentine, — In behalf of a large portion of the lads, 
your late pupils, permit me to tender you this pencil, as a 
token of our warmest gratitude and respect for your character 
as a teacher, a friend, and a man. Let not our delinquencies, 
to which we have been quite too prone, obliterate from your 
recollection what little of good you may have discovered in 
us ; but, unlike the records you shall make with the pencil, 
may it be engraven on the tablet of your memory in such a 
manner that distance or circumstance, nay, nothing save the 
finger of time, shall ever be able to erase it. 

And as the last ray of the setting sun lingers upon the hill- 
tops, leaving its warm and genial influences upon flower and 
herbage long after that luminary has sunk beneath the hori- 
zon, so, we trust, the hallowing influence of the choice lessons 
of wisdom imparted to us through your teachings, and the 
gentle spirit of kindness ever manifested towards us, shall 
linger with us while our being lasts, and be felt by posterity 
long after our sun of life shall have gone down forever. 

The reply of Mr. Valentine was very nearly as follows : 

Beloved pupils, — I hardly know how to express my grati- 
tude to you for this beautiful golden gift, whose office it will 
be hereafter to inscribe the thoughts as they flow from the 
inmost workings of the soul. How often I shall have occa- 
sion to recall your kindness ! How often, as I record what- 
ever may transpire in the future scenes of my life, shall I 
be reminded, by this noble gift, of the masters of District 
No. 11 ! 

If, in past years, I have done aught that has rendered your 



322 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES 

ascent up the hill of science easy, or done anything that has 
given your morals an onward course, receive it, beloved pupils, 
as coming from one whose pleasant duty it was to do all in 
his power to prepare you for future usefulness. 

I say again, kind friends, receive my many thanks ; and as 
the shades of darkness have fallen around us, and we are 
about to separate, — you to return to your several homes to go 
on preparing for future usefulness, — may we inscribe excelsior 
on our banners, and love on our hearts, hoping that we may 
have many pleasant meetings on earth, and at last may we 
meet in heaven. 



ON PRESENTATION OF BOOKS, 

AT WATERVILLE. 

During the exercises of a collation, at the close of the fall term 
of the Waterville Liberal Institute, Nov. 12, 1847, Miss Sarah J. 
Goodale, on making a present of books to the Principal, thus ad- 
dressed him : 

Dear Teacher, — In behalf of the teachers' class of the 
Waterville Liberal Institute, with which you this day honor- 
ably close your arduous and very successful labors as Prin- 
cipal, I present you these beautiful volumes. They are 
presented in token of our high respect for you as a Christian 
and a scholar ; and especially of our deep gratitude for your 
faithfulness and zeal in imparting instruction, and the affec- 
tionate solicitude with which you have ever regarded the 
highest well-being of all your pupils. ' 

These Poems your excellent literary taste will perceive to 
be among the most gifted productions of the American mind ; 
and this Holy Bible, whose great and glorious truths make 
wise unto salvation, — this Book of all books, — we know you 
will always suitably prize. 

Please, then, on this parting occasion, accept our gifts, and 
keep them as mementoes of the donors, who sincerely hope, 
though we should never more meet on earth, we may have 
the happiness of meeting at last in heaven, where the bond 
of friendship knows no separations, and the word farewell 
is never spoken. 

On receiving the books, the Principal thus replied : 

It is impossible for me to express adequately my feelings, 
on receiving such noble gifts as these, in token of the affec- 



AND EXERCISES. 323 

tionate regards of my pupils. The unexpected honor the 
teachers' class has been pleased to do me on this occasion 
will constitute this scene one of those bright spots in life 
around which my memory will delight to linger. Both the 
intrinsic value of your presents, and the circumstances under 
which they are bestowed, call forth my most grateful acknowl- 
edgements. 

These Poems, so beautiful in expression and excellent in 
sentiment, I shall ever delight to peruse ; while this elegant 
Bible I shall esteem above price, and hereafter, as I shall go 
to its inspired pages for instruction, my enjoyment will be 
heightened by the most pleasant recollections of its donors. 

Although we must separate, never more perhaps to meet 
on earth, we rejoice that we can do it with the kindest wishes 
for each others' welfare. 

My young friends, take with you, on the voyage of life, 
truth and love. Follow the right, and God will never fail 
to give you his richest blessings. 



ON PRESENTATION OF A GOLD RING AND WATCH- 
CHAIN, 



AT SALEM. 



A splendid gold ring and watch-chain were presented to Mr. 
Weston, Principal of the South Phillips School, Salem, Mass., on 
Saturday, Nov. 25, 1848, at the close of the morning session, by 
Benjamin S. Price, in behalf of the school. The following was his 
presentation speech : 

Mr. Weston, — The scholars of the South Phillips School 
have authorized me to request your acceptance of a gold 
ring,,- and also of a gold watch-chain. 

I have, sir, great pleasure in performing this duty ; and, in 
their behalf, beg leave to assure you that they offer them not 
for their intrinsic value, but as testimonials slight, but all that 
is in their power to offer, of the respect and affection which 
they entertain for you. 

The ring has, in all ages, been considered as a pledge of 
affection ; as such a pledge from grateful pupils, we offer it 
to you ; — and may this chain be emblematical of that chain 
which we hope will bind the hearts of instructor and pupils in 
mutual love. 

Mr. Weston returned his thanks by some very excellent remarks. 



324 OCCASIONAL ADDRESSES AND EXERCISES. 

ADDRESS TO GENERAL TAYLOR, 

AT NEW ORLEANS. 

At an examination of the Girls' High School of the Second 
Municipality, Dec. 2d, 1848, the President elect, being in attendance 
by invitation, was presented to the assemblage by Recorder Baldwin, 
and afterwards addressed as follows, by Miss Perry, in behalf of her 
fellow-pupils : 

I HAVE been deputed by my classmates, dear general, to 
express to you the pleasure we experience from a sense of the 
high honor conferred upon the school by a visit from the dis- 
tinguished chieftain who has been elected by the votes of 
freemen to preside over the destinies of our great republic. 

It is, indeed, a source of gratification, when one of our own 
citizens visits the school ; but how much is that gratification 
augmented, when we receive as our guest one who has ren- 
dered both himself and his country illustrious by his brilliant 
military achievements, and who is now about to entwine the 
graceful olive with the laurels which already encircle his 
brow. We trust, moreover, that you feel and acknowledge 
the truth of the celebrated reply of Madam De Genlis, when 
asked by Napoleon how he could best serve the interests of 
France — " By the education of her daughters." Pardon us, 
sir, for hoping that, under your auspices, at least one bureau 
may be established at the seat of government for the cause 
of education, upon which we have been taught the perpetuity 
of our institutions depends, so that a new civic flower may be 
wrought into the chaplet which you have earned upon the 
field of battle. 

And when, in after years, we see your name associated 
with some of the most glorious deeds which have adorned 
the pages of our country's history, what delight and gratifica- 
tion w^ill thrill our hearts, as memory brings back, among her 
choicest reminiscences, the hour you spent at the Girls' High 
School of the Second Municipality of New Orleans. 



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